Messages

5131

General Mach Discussion / Re: Limit switch set up on Mach3 with the Gecko g540

« on: March 03, 2018, 04:45:21 AM »

Hi,

Should I wire the switches so that I have each home switch has an individual input... x to input pin 10, y to 11, z to 12

That was what I recommended in the first place but you've done something different.

If you have three home switches, one for each axis and each on its own pin you will need ANOTHER SIX switches for the limits, one at each end of each axis,
they can ALL be in series NC and connected to ONE pin on the Gecko. As it stands you have what amounts to limit switches on each axis with each axis
having its own pin.

The real problem you have is that somehow you are confusing Machs pin numbers and the Geckos pin numbers and your Z axis switches are not being 'seen' by
Mach. I you can solve that you can probably get the existing arrangement to work.

Craig

5132

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: New Mach4 interface designer suite (Lua)

« on: March 03, 2018, 02:20:53 AM »

Hi,
why? Is there something about Mach's UI that is not right?

Mach4 is a machine control program, its primary purpose is to machine parts not present a really fancy UI. Have seen a Hass controller in action recently....
boring as hell, visually speaking but it sure cuts the mustard when it comes to running Gcode and making parts. I'll forgive any program for being downright
ugly if it can do a great job of running Gcode and ideally conversational programming.

Craig

5133

General Mach Discussion / Re: Using two uc100, with mach3. gecko540 and mach3 interfaceboard.

« on: March 02, 2018, 08:51:47 PM »

Hi,

it is a motion controller with a motion control plugin, so it works as a motion controller

Which was exactly my surmise.

Craig

5134

General Mach Discussion / Re: Using two uc100, with mach3. gecko540 and mach3 interfaceboard.

« on: March 02, 2018, 08:08:26 PM »

Hi,
for time critical systems that may be true. However it is perfectly acceptable and is in fact done, certainly in Mach4 anyway, that a board other than the motion
control board be connected to buttons, switches, pots and MPGs which make up control panels.

In Mach4, and if I'm not mistaken Mach3, home signals are handled by the motion controller and that obviates any delay. If a second board were to monitor a home switch
it would have to communicate that event to the motion control board and would fail due to the communication delay. Additionally the motion control board is designed and
expecting a home signal 'on board', how would you go about signaling the homing routine about an event monitored elsewhere?

I don't know about limit switches, I suspect they are, at least the initial response, handled by the motion controller also. Probing inputs are certainly handled at board level
and could not be spread across two boards.

Craig

5135

General Mach Discussion / Re: Windows 10 update causes erratic movements

« on: March 02, 2018, 06:12:49 PM »

Hi,
I have heard it said that a PC running Mach is NO LONGER A PC, it is a machine controller that happens to use Windows as an operating system.

Debugging is within the program not a windows issue

How is it that Mach started playing up AFTER a Windows update?

You may be advised that a separate PC for CNC alone might be the ultimate solution.

Craig

5136

General Mach Discussion / Re: Using two uc100, with mach3. gecko540 and mach3 interfaceboard.

« on: March 02, 2018, 03:51:03 PM »

Hi,
ger21's suggestion is the most straight forward. I think the UC300 from the same company has five 'ports worth' of IO....even more than the UC400.

I know Mach4 can accommodate more than one board, it can still only have one motion controller. For instance you could have an ESS as the primary
motion controller but have a PoKeys 57E and its plugin installed and use all the extra IO on the board. You couldn't hook motors up to it and expect
them to move synchronously with the ones hooked up to the ESS. In fact I'm not sure that you can run out-of-band motors from any board which is not
your primary motion controller but you can certainly use all its IO.

I was of the opinion that a similar thing could be done with Mach3, that is have one board as a motion controller and a second board as extra IO.
I suspect the plugin for the UC100 which is designed to be a primary motion controller is unsuitable for use as IO alone and would not therefore work.

Craig

5137

General Mach Discussion / Re: Windows 10 update causes erratic movements

« on: March 02, 2018, 03:36:51 PM »

Hi,
I know it is the norm to update Windows but why? It would help if you are getting updated security patches to avoid the latest scam but your CNC PC shouldn't be
on the internet and not exposed to the threats and not therefore require all the latest Windows updates.

I am intrigued that you should be asking on a Mach forum 'what's wrong with Mach when it fails after an update' instead of on a Windows forum asking 'what's wrong with
Windows, one of my applications fails now that the update is in place'.

I can only presume that the PC you use for Mach is also used for all or a lot of your other classroom activities? If that's the case then it may well be a regular thing that
Windows updates are going to interfere with Mach.

My suggestion would be in the first instance to check the firewall rules to ensure that nothing has changed. The second idea may be to see if you can exclude the Gcode
files requested by Mach from the anti-virus scan.

Craig

5138

General Mach Discussion / Re: Servio motor Delta adas b2 Software and electronic gear ratio

« on: March 02, 2018, 02:09:43 PM »

Hi,
just realized that I don't know what servo you are using, or in particular what is the encoder count per rev?

Craig

5139

General Mach Discussion / Re: Servio motor Delta adas b2 Software and electronic gear ratio

« on: March 02, 2018, 01:45:39 PM »

Hi,
if your servo encoder is 10,000 count per rev then Mach would have to produce 10,000 pulses in one second to cause the servo to turn one revolution.
If you want the servo to run at 3000 rpm it will have to run at 50 revolutions per second and Mach would have to produce 500,000 pulses per second to
do it. A parallel port installation can't even get close to 500,000 pulses per second, 25,000 per second is the norm.

Thus because of the limited pulse speed of Mach you can't use the full potential of the servo. One way around that is to use electronic gearing.
If the denominator is set to 20 then for each pulse received by the drive from Mach the servo will turn 20 counts of its encoder. If Mach produces its
max 25,000 pulses per second the servo will turn 20 *25,000=500,000 counts per second ie 3000 rpm.

You don't get it for nothing. Without electronic gearing the servo resolution is 1/10,000 rev=0.036 degrees or 2.16 min of arc. With an electronic gear ratio of 1/20
the resolution is 20/10,000 rev=0.72 degree or 43.2 min of arc. Using electronic gearing trades resolution for speed.

Most external motion controllers have pulse speeds much higher than Machs parallel port, 100kHz is a minimum, my ESS can manage 4MHz. Most servo drives
can't even with differential signaling accept more than 500kHz so 4MHz is somewhat academic.  It is still useful if reading an encoder however. Many Delta servos
for instance have 17 bit encoders for 131,072 counts per rev or 6.5MHz at 3000 rpm!

Give me some details about what your trying to achieve and I'll try to help with the two numbers you require (numerator and denominator). You'll need to know the maximum
useful signaling rate of your controller and the maximum speed that you wish to run the servo. Note that single ended signaling is good to about 75kHz (the manual
might say more, but 75Khz is safely conservative) and beyond that you'll need differential signaling. If your BoB can't do it you'll have to make a circuit with a line
driver IC on it.

Craig

5140

General Mach Discussion / Re: Is there "Driver Test" in Trial Mach3

« on: March 02, 2018, 01:10:43 PM »

Hi,
DriverTest.exe is a means of testing a parallel port. You don't (can't) have a parallel port ergo DriverTest.exe won't work. It should still be in the main
Mach3 folder.

Craig