Messages

5291

General Mach Discussion / Re: Syil X3 Spindle Not Turning On (and) Axis Moving SLOW

« on: February 12, 2018, 12:34:51 PM »

Hi,
when Mach starts it is initialised with a slow feedrate. You can manually change that by issuing a F********* MDI command or include a suitable F********* in the initialization
string on the Config/General Config page.

Craig

5292

General Mach Discussion / Re: Syil X3 Spindle Not Turning On (and) Axis Moving SLOW

« on: February 12, 2018, 06:17:48 AM »

Hi,
there are dozens of different strategies for Mach to control a spindle. It depends on what sort of spindle you have and what sort of control you need.

The simplest control is to have Mach just turn in on or off, it could be as simple as a relay or a contactor for a bigger spindle or a Solid State Relay.
You could have the spindle go forward and reverse, if you need it, although I don't know anyone who has lefthanded cutters or drills, so it seems a bit pointless
to me unless your doing rigid tapping, and the fact that your asking tells me your not even close to the realm of rigid tapping!

Machs native speed control strategy is PWM. One output pin is turned on and off rapidly to emulate an analogue voltage which in turn controls a
DC power supply/amplifier for DC spindles or the analogue voltage input of a VFD for an AC spindle.

Another way is Step/Direction control not dissimilar to an axis motor. They are superbly accurate and often very powerful for rigid tapping an worth a FORTUNE!

To be honest a lot of people go overboard trying to control a spindle spending a lot of time and money on it when often they don't really need it, unless they
want to bragg (or toss off) about it. Start simple and work your way up to what you need, as opposed to what you want, assuming you not a bragger!

Craig

5293

General Mach Discussion / Re: loadlibrary failed with error 87

« on: February 12, 2018, 05:50:29 AM »

Hi,
the reason I ask about a motion controller is that with Windows10, in fact any 64 bit OS, you will need an external motion controller to control a machine.
While you can download either Mach3 or Mach4 or both for free and use them in Demo mode for as long as you like if you want to control a machine then
you'll have to buy an external controller.

You could buy cheap Chinese or get a Chinese knock-off of a decent controller or buy a decent one from the start. A simple but decent external controller like a UC100
(and I'm not talking one of the Chinese knock-offs that you get off Ebay) is $120. One with two or three 'ports' worth of IO are about $180-$250. A flash one like Hicon
is about $600

You could use a parallel port, free for Mach3 or $25 for Mach4 but it MUST be a 32bit OS Windows7 or earlier.

I'm not sure what your 'loadlibrary failed with error 87' is all about. May I suggest downloading a fresh copy of Mach3 and try again. Note that when you install Mach3
DONT TRY TO INSTALL THE PARALLEL PORT, it won't work with a 64 bit OS. You might try to download and install Mach4. It will install without problem but it doesn't
have a parallel port to install and because you have a 64 bit OS it wouldn't work anyway. Mach4 has a Sim(ulator) plugin which allows you to play with the program,
you won't be able to control a machine of course, its a Sim(ulator)!

Craig

5294

General Mach Discussion / Re: Syil X3 Spindle Not Turning On (and) Axis Moving SLOW

« on: February 12, 2018, 12:35:09 AM »

Hi,
until you can get Mach to control your axes, you can jog around and issue MDI commands who cares about the spindle?

Do the first things first. Learn what you need to do to jog. Learn what you need to do to MDI commands.

Craig

5295

General Mach Discussion / Re: loadlibrary failed with error 87

« on: February 12, 2018, 12:30:58 AM »

Hi,
do you have an external motion controller?

Craig

5296

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: ESS not communicating to Mach 4

« on: February 12, 2018, 12:28:54 AM »

Hi,
this is on the Warp9 site and refers to the LEDs in the top of the Ethernet socket:

The Ethernet Jack has two LEDs on it. The upper left one is yellow. This is an important status LED. It represents the status of the Link Layer. If a link has not been established, the yellow LED will not be on. The link layer is a low-level Ethernet layer that needs to be present between your ESS and your PC in order for the higher-level communications to run.

Confirm the Yellow LED.

Craig

5297

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: ESS not communicating to Mach 4

« on: February 12, 2018, 12:24:37 AM »

Hi,
OK it sounds like Machs OK but either communication to the ESS from the PC is faulty or alternately the BoB is not responding to the ESS.

Do you have any indication that the ESS is communicating with the PC?

I'll track down the reference but seem to recall the LEDs of the ESS have a distinct pattern when communication is established.

Craig

5298

General Mach Discussion / Re: loadlibrary failed with error 87

« on: February 11, 2018, 10:42:38 PM »

Hi,
Windows 10, so I assume you must have an external motion controller. What one?

Craig

5299

General Mach Discussion / Re: Syil X3 Spindle Not Turning On (and) Axis Moving SLOW

« on: February 11, 2018, 10:41:02 PM »

Hi,
when you first start Mach its common for the jog speed to be very low, sort of saftey thing.

Try some MDI moves:

G0 X5 <enter>
X0 <enter>
X5 <enter>
x0 <enter>

This should move the X axis back and forth 5 units at the max speed you've tuned the motors to.

Is the spindle under Machs control? Its quite common for a spindle not to be, you just lean over turn the switch on then
start your Gcode running. Its nice to have Mach turn your spindle on and off and control the speed but often
its not really required, you can do heaps just by turning on and off by hand.

Craig

5300

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: ESS not communicating to Mach 4

« on: February 11, 2018, 07:47:30 PM »

Hi,
kool.

Try MDI
g0 x5
x0
x5
x0
x5

Should see x axis move back and forth 5 units. Keep a watch on the BoB you will with any sort of luck
see an LED turn on and off as a result.

Craig