Messages

2881

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach3 / PMDX-122 Issue

« on: March 18, 2019, 10:57:27 PM »

Hi,
just to be 100% sure you are talking Windows 7 32 bit?
You are trying to use Machs parallel port?

I have also ran the Driver Test in the Mach3 folder and that came back successfully.

Can you expand on this? Ideally a screen shot of the DriverTest screen......it tells a good deal about the health of the
parallel port.

Craig

2882

Mach3 under Vista / Re: RnR Mtion Card Not Found

« on: March 18, 2019, 06:43:57 PM »

Hi,
it sounds like Mach can't establish communication with the motion card.

The fact that Mach is looking for it confirms that the RnR card is correctly set as the nominated motion controller.
Further I think if Mach can't find the .dll file which is the plugin for the card it comes up with a different error,
which tends to suggest that the .dll file is found.

One possibility is that the USB connection or its driver is faulty. I believe the USB and drivers are supplied by Windows
not Mach or the RnR plugin. Another possibility is that the RnR plugin is corrupt. Remember that Mach actually
communicates with the plugin and then the plugin communicates to the Windows USB driver.

Do you have a backup copy of the plugin (.dll ) file? If so try substituting it for the potentially corrupt version in
the Mach3/Plugins folder.

Craig

2883

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach3 to Mach4 with Warp9 ESS

« on: March 18, 2019, 06:07:22 PM »

Hi,
yes Axis Mapping is set and can only be set in Machs Control plugin.

As I said earlier having the ESS automatically update the Control plugin is useful but it is often not
clear when it does or does not do so. The good news is that once you get your machine set up it
will be much clearer and very simple to maintain. The initial learning curve can be brutal.

Craig

2884

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Proper way to use work / tool offsets

« on: March 18, 2019, 05:10:20 PM »

Hi,
I had used Mach3 for a year or more without home switches......and all this stuff was very confusing to me. I had
a few crashes too.

Then I got around to fitting home switches and in short order the fog cleared.....and I've had only one crash in the 4-1/2 years
since, operator error.

May I suggest using the Offsets page and expand the Fixture Table and observe the effect of entering data directly
into the Fixture Table and using the Machine Coords button to flick back and forth between machine coords and work coords.
Note you can pin the Fixture Table to the top, and keep it in view while you experiment.

Craig

2885

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach3 to Mach4 with Warp9 ESS

« on: March 18, 2019, 03:40:27 PM »

Hi,
what about the motor tuning pages in the Control plugin?

Also have a look on the machine diagnostics tab when Mach is enabled to see whether the M0, M1 and M2 motors are
enabled (green LEDs).

Craig

2886

General Mach Discussion / Re: pics of machine

« on: March 18, 2019, 02:55:02 PM »

Hi,
kool. You have worked out how to attach a pic.

Next time try using Paint or some such program to resize the photo. Your pic is so big that you have to scan around
to see it all. It conveys more info if it were reduced in size so you don't have to scroll back and forth.
Generally its considered that 600kB should be the maximum size of any single attached file and in most cases
that works out to pics in the region of 700 x 500 pixels.

Craig

2887

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach3 to Mach4 with Warp9 ESS

« on: March 18, 2019, 02:36:01 PM »

Hi,

So My Stupid question is that besides the Warp9 setup configure,  do I need to do it All Again in the plug down Control window??

No.....in most cases. When you open the ESS plugin and set an input for instance Machs Control plugin is automatically
updated also.

There are items where that is not the case. Motor tuning settings for example must be set in the Control plugin.

It is quite confusing initially as to what Mach variables are updated when you change them in the ESS plugin. With
the ESS plugin about 90% of the changes which are made there are automatically reflected in the Control plugin.
Other controller manufacturers don't do that, or at least to the same extent. Thus with the UC300 if you wish to
set an input you first make the change in the UC300 plugin and THEN go into the Control plugin and make the change
there also.

Craig

2888

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Proper way to use work / tool offsets

« on: March 18, 2019, 02:17:36 PM »

Hi,

I used to just open Mach 3, zero the machine coordinate system at the work zero and cut away (all work offsets being zero).

What was happening was that when you jogged to the start location and 'zeroed your machine coordinates' what you actually
did was 'home in place'. It is an option  (Mach3  AND Mach4) that when you <RefAllHome> or <RefAxis> to have the machines
current location be the new home position. It is a poor practice.

Now that you have proper home switches when you <RefAllHome> the machine will home and zero its machine coordinates.

I believe the machine starts in G53 and is located at 0,0,0

No, G53 is a non-modal Gcode that causes Mach to interpret the axis coordinate destinations on the line on which it occurs
as machine coordinates.

So you start a Mach4 session by starting the machine and hitting <RefAllHome>. Then jog to the start location, commonly
the corner of the material, and then 'zero the axes' per attached. Note that this zeros the work coordinates NOT the machine
coordinates. Mach does this by setting numbers in the current work offset (G54 by default) such that the current
machine coordinates MINUS the G54 offsets cause the DRO to be zero.

In the pic I have posted I homed the machine and then jogged 28mm in the X axis, 26mm in the Y axis and 22mm down
in the Z axis and then zeroed all three axes. The DROs all now read 0.0000  This means the work offsets (G54) are set to
28, 26 and -22. Thus the work offset is set without you having to do anything and you can now start machining.

Lets say you wish to run the same program again on the same piece of material (still in the vice) you can use the button
<GoTOWorkZero> and the machine will traverse to the corner of the material. You might consider then that the G54 offsets
are the machine coordinate location of the corner of the material. The DROs should all read 0.0000 and you can now run
your Gcode again.

Lets say you want to finish the Mach session without completing the part. When you shut Mach down the work offsets
are flushed to the registers which are stored in the .ini file. Lets say you come back the next day. Start Mach and the work
offsets will be restored to what they were at the end of your last session.Home (<RefAllHome>) as normal and then
<GoToWorkZero> and the machine will traverse to the corner of the material which is still in the vice. You don't
have to touch off again.

Note that Mach3 and Mach4 behave the same in this regard. I fact ALL CNC machines operate this way. It is for this reason
that I argue that good home switches are ESSENTIAL to operating Mach. In your case you have added index homing to the
mix but the essential idea remains the same. The work offsets (G54, G55, G56...etc) are in effect the machine coordinate
locations of various points of interest, the corner of the material in the vice for instance.

Sometimes it seems like the first line runs and throws some weird number into the Z axis DRO,

When m6 runs the DRO will change to the current work coordinate location of the Z axis. The number represents the difference
between the actual and current machine coordinate and the current work offset but with NO tool offset. When the second
line runs the tool offset is set per the attached and the DRO recalculated to include the G54 offsets AND the tool offsets.

Craig

2889

General Mach Discussion / Re: X Axis clunking - Skipping Steps

« on: March 17, 2019, 11:56:28 PM »

Hi,
there are several possibilities that can cause missing steps. The trick is to make a list of all the things it could
be and devise some tests to rule them out until only one is left.

The most likely reason that a stepper loses steps is because it is overloaded. From what you have described though it sounds like
it goes OK in one direction but not the other? Is that with the spindle running and the tool engaged in cutting the material?
If the tool is cutting it may be that the cutting forces are much stronger in one direction than the other. That is the difference
between climb and conventional milling.

It is also possible that the gantry has got out of square which can cause a lot of drag in one direction but not  the other.
Can you disengage the two motors from the pinions and establish that the gantry is free to move in both directions? Would be
a good time to intentionally drag the gantry out of square to get a feel for how much drag an out of square situation causes.

May I suggest that you run a piece of Gcode  program (that causes the fault to show up) and run it with the spindle running but no
tool in it. If the X axis works as its supposed to then that would prove(?) that cutting forces are overloading the stepper.

Another possibility is that electrical noise, most likely from the spindle, is affecting the X axis direction signals.
A test to try is to run a piece of Gcode without the spindle running. If it performs OK it points to electrical interference.
I would guess that if electrical interference is responsible that it would affect the axis in both directions rather than just one.
Having said that its not impossible for such uni-directional interference. Its a simple test to try......and may give you some
insight into your machine.

Do you have any gearing between the pinions and the stepper motors? If not then the steppers will be required to deliver
strong torque to accelerate the gantry. If that is the case then the faster you go the worse the problem will be. Given that
you cant get it to fault while jogging, and jogging is usually conducted at a percentage of maximum speed, that it faults
when running Gcode, potentially at maximum traverse speeds, but not at lower jogging speeds it not impossible.

May I suggest trying the reduce the max velocity of both master and slave motors down to 25% of what they are currently.
Then try running the Gcode again to see if the fault has disappeared. It will give you an indication as to whether its a speed
related issue. That it happens in one direction but not the other is perplexing. This is however a very simple (motor tuning)
test to perform....why not try?

Craig

2890

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Various Issues I have run across with Mach 4

« on: March 17, 2019, 06:13:47 PM »

Hi,
I have no experience with the Acorn system. From what I have read it is a polished and work ready system.

If you had the ESS and Mach3 working to your satisfaction then the ESS and Mach4 will be at least as good, and in
some circumstances better.

When all said and done both Mach3 AND Mach4 are GCode interpreters and trajectory planners. They take Gcode,
decode it and send P(osition)V(elocity) over T(ime) data to the motion controller. They support essentially identical
Gcode and so they perform nearly identically when running Gcode jobs.

The real advantage of Mach4 over Mach3 is its ability to be customized. Given you have a standard design router it
may well be that you need little or no customization at all. Therefore the strength of Mach4 will not be immediately
apparent.

Mach4 achieves its flexibility by a happy confluence of several design features. Mach is modular, and individual modules
can be added, subtracted or modified WITHOUT screwing up the rest of Mach4. This was a major failing of Mach3, you fix
one problem but break two other features elsewhere in the program. Mach4 has a consistent API, there again a marked
improvement over Mach3 which has a confusing set of attribute addressing modes depending on the 'era' that section
during which Mach3 was coded. Mach4 uses Lua which is a small, fast multi paradigm scripting language. The language is
deceptively simple but has a unique set of features that allow procedural, object oriented, functional and constraint
paradigms to be coded.

Depending on your ability and/or inclination those design features may not mean much to you.  My opinion of the balance
of the features and the flexibility it confers is make Mach4 the most flexible Windows CNC solution on the planet. Notwithstanding
the good feedback from UCCNC users I still believe Mach4 exceeds UCCNC in terms of customization.

The only true competitor, in terms of customization, is LinuxCNC. Of course Linux is not every ones cup of tea and coding in
C/C++ is not trivial either. None the less LinuxCNC has been adopted by OEMs and modified and polished into a highly
functional CNC solution. Haas controllers are probably the leading example of how LinuxCNC can be adapted.

Thus if I were an OEM looking for a CNC software solution that I could adapt and integrate into my machines there are two
preeminent choices, Mach4 or LinuxCNC. That reduces to the choice between a buffered Windows solution or a low jitter
realtime Linux solution. The question of 'Linux vs Windows' is a whole debate in itself. I personally am familiar with Windows
and therefore choose Mach4 as my solution.

The truth is, of course I'm no OEM and neither are you, and therefore is all the flexibility that Mach4 offers actually required?
In my case the answer is no......but I like it none the less. If you also answer 'no, that kind of flexibility it not what I need or
want' then your choices of CNC software solutions expands somewhat, certainly UCCNC comes into consideration as does
Acorn.

My only misgivings about UCCNC and Acorn are that they are a single proprietary solution (software and hardware),
that is to say if you adopt Acorn say then you are obliged to play their way....and pay accordingly. I don't mean to
suggest that either company is about to 'entrap' customers for profit nor that NFS and supporting hardware manufacturers
can't do the same thing. That is a matter for you to decide. The history of NFS and Warp9TD, the two manufacturers
of my CNC solution is amply demonstrated for me to purchase from them.

You might ask why have NFS gone about developing Mach4 in the way that they have.....all in all Mach4 does not have a good
name from either new converts or those updating from Mach3, to such people Mach4 seems overly complicated.

My contention, and this is my own opinion only, is that NFS need OEM customers to survive as a business. You and I might
buy one Mach4Hobby license each for $400 combined as a one off sale. An OEM might buy five Mach4Industrial licenses
a month for $7000. Bryanna and others have stated that NFS values Hobby customers, and their continued support of
this forum and continual updates to Mach4 at very generous licensing conditions prove it. None the less NFS must look
to the development of Mach4 in such a manner that they can attract OEM customers. That is the driving force behind
the development strategies and priorities of Mach4.....and I love it!!

I do sell my work from time to time and I need something I can depend on.

My opinion is that Mach4 is  more reliable and better supported than Mach3. If Mach3 has been adequate in the past then
Mach4 will be at least as good in the future. If you do not require any or very little customization, or are prepared to pay for it,
then Acorn is a reasonable choice.

Craig