Messages

301

General Mach Discussion / Re: just bought a little baby cnc 280mm square davinci style thing

« on: January 30, 2023, 08:56:38 PM »

Hi,
thanks Tweakie, that was the one I was thinking about. OP can decide for himself.

Craig

302

General Mach Discussion / Re: just bought a little baby cnc 280mm square davinci style thing

« on: January 30, 2023, 07:39:29 PM »

Hi Tweakie,
thanks, I'd forgotten Aspire. I seem to recall there was a freeware solution, not Freecad or FreeUtils........or something..... that had useful letter engraving capability.

Craig

303

General Mach Discussion / Re: Freezing Issue

« on: January 30, 2023, 07:12:17 PM »

Hi,
it's not impossible that the pendant is doing it but its more likely that Machs parallel port is 'running out of data'

Mach3 generates numeric trajectory data and that is buffered and ultimately digested by Machs parallel port driver. Its the drivers job to take the numeric description of the controlled point in
1 millisecond time slices and generate the pulse streams for the motors. If the buffer ever 'Runs out of Data' the machine will stop, in most case irrevocably. This can happen if Windows decides to do
something other than run Mach, or more likely spends too long doing some other task before it gets back to Mach.

There may be a service or process that is causing it or it may be another piece of software on the PC.

All those years (9) ago that I used Mach3's parallel port it used to happen to me to....sometimes. Then I bought an Ethernet SmoothStepper and its never happened since.
Well, that's not quite true, I had a brief period of time where my ESS was 'Running out of Data' too. It turns out my machine PC had been on and running for four months
continuously without ever being switched off and Mach4 (I upgraded eight years ago) running 24/7. The memory had become fragmented. I turned the PC off and rebooted.
I now reboot once a month just to be safe.

The bottom line is that an external motion controller like an ESS or UC100 relieves the PC of the duty of generating the pulse streams. It's generating these pulse streams
which renders Mach3 prone to stalling or stopping.

Craig

304

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Z home tripped

« on: January 30, 2023, 06:45:32 PM »

Hi,

Simple solution in the end, new V3 860T drivers have a 5/24v switch, default 24v  go figure )

Been there, done that. I had a battle the first time I set up my Delta servos. The Step and Direction inputs are differential. I wired it up
but misinterpreted the direction of the photodiode in the optocoupler input of the drive. Turns out I had to swap the two wires....thereafter
no trouble. I'm surprised you didn't hear me swearing and shouting, after all I'm only 14000 kms away, and I was really shouting loud!!

I got another servo about a fortnight ago for my fourth axis. It took about an hour to solder up the input plug to the cable to the breakout board,
was able to recycle previous settings to program the drive courtesy of the setup and tuning software, plugged the servo in and it worked perfectly
right from the get go. So you do learn from experience....even if that experience is hard fought.

Craig

305

General Mach Discussion / Re: just bought a little baby cnc 280mm square davinci style thing

« on: January 30, 2023, 06:22:21 PM »

Hi,
if you have a Mach3 license then it still works and makes sense to carry on.

I use Mach4 and have done for eight years, and in my opinion is vastly better. That does not mean that it cuts more accurately or faster but rather
its about the ability to customise your machine. Mach4 is definitely better for that. Having said that for a three axis machine you don't really need any
of the Mach4 goodness, Mach3 will work.

Mach4 costs $200. No upgrade from Mach3, its a totally new product. Mach4 requires an external motion controller, I'd recommend an ESS ($190). Note the ESS
can use either Mach3 OR Mach4, so even if you decide months from now that you want Mach4 the same ESS will work. You'll need a breakout board, or maybe more than
one if you want a lot of IO.  A C10 is $23.00 and has 17IO's. A C25 is $29.00 and has 34 IO's. Note neither the C10 or C25 have a relay for the spindle nor a PWM circuit
for the spindle, you'd need to do a little electronics to add those. There are many breakout boards that work with an ESS, right up to an MB3 ($180) from CNCRoom with
51 IO's, all the relays, PWM circuits, inputs, differential motor outputs 'you can shake a stick at'.

I would suggest if possible to reuse your existing five phase steppers. If you post  some closeups we may be able to learn enough about them to get them working.
As I posted earlier I have 4 'kick arse' 5 phase Vexta drivers that'll make your machine sing. I'd sell the lot for $200, remember I'm in New Zealand....so it might cost a penny or two
to get them to wherever you are.

Note sure what the gadget is that you linked to, can you post a pic of the circuit diagram on the side?

I use Fusion, a paid subscription, but is available free to hobbyists. There are other CAD/CAM that would do what you want, I think if Tweakie reads this he will know the
one I'm thinking of, I cant remember it offhand.

Craig

306

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Z home tripped

« on: January 30, 2023, 05:28:34 PM »

Hi,
it's highly probably electrical noise. Right at the moment that things like stepper drives are latching up and so on there are switching transients that
can 'jump the ditch' and end up on a limit or home switch circuit.

On the ESS Plugin configuration Pins_Config tab apply some noise filtering. On my machine, not the screen shot of an unconfigured ESS on my
regular PC, all my Home and Limit switch circuits have a noise filtering of 500 applied.  The number is very approximately the same as the time
constant of the filter applied in micro seconds. A value of 500 means a 3dB frequency of about 2kHz, it has proven to be more than adequate
on my mill.

Craig

307

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Reading spindle true RPM

« on: January 30, 2023, 02:22:09 PM »

Hi,

Attached is a screeshot of the ESS configuration plugin, the Spindle tab in particular, note the averaging time setting.

Craig

308

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Reading spindle true RPM

« on: January 30, 2023, 02:16:41 PM »

HI,
I've just had a response from Andy, the tech guy at Warp9TD, the manufacturer of the ESS. The ESS handles the calculation and the averaging.....not Mach.
I presume the PoKeys works the same way. In which case the averaging is a feature of your motion controller and you are right to pursue PoLab about it.

https://warp9td.com/index.php/kunena/7-general-discussion/9428-spindle-speed-averaging#31373

Craig

309

General Mach Discussion / Re: just bought a little baby cnc 280mm square davinci style thing

« on: January 30, 2023, 02:12:47 PM »

Hi,
all steppers lose torque the faster they go, its just the physics of how stepper motors work. The inductance of a stepper motor determines how bad that torque degradation
will be. The lower the inductance the better. What inductance are those steppers you have pictured?

The classic way to try to overcome the reducing torque is to use the highest possible voltage drivers and power supply.
I think 24VDC is a joke....those steppers are likely to stall at 100rpm. If you used 60VDC or 72VDC or better 80VDC then they might get to 1000rpm.

Craig

310

General Mach Discussion / Re: just bought a little baby cnc 280mm square davinci style thing

« on: January 30, 2023, 04:15:03 AM »

Hi,

I am reckoning that all servo motors are 10 core 5 phase motors, 500 pulse, maybe,

No. Old school servo motors are a brushed DC motor fitted with either a tacho-generator and/or an encoder. No pulses.
Brushless DC servos have three phases around the outside of a permanently magnetized rotor and use trapezoidal commutation. No pulses.
AC servos have three phase windings on the outside of a permanently magnetized rotor fitted with an encoder. They use Field Oriented Control,
ie have a smart drive providing three phase sinusoidal excitation to the winding. No pulses.

Craig