Messages

6061

General Mach Discussion / Re: z axis problem

« on: November 03, 2017, 08:23:43 PM »

Hi,
don't know if you have an Estop button, but you should...it may not prevent all accidents but you will stop a few!

Craig

6062

General Mach Discussion / Re: z axis problem

« on: November 03, 2017, 08:22:01 PM »

Hi,
can do. A lot of gear made for the hobby CNC market has poor documentation, even among quality manufacturers the info can be maddeningly brief or just
non-existent. I, for other reasons, elected to buy Vexta stepper and drivers and paid a huge premium for them. As it turns out my reasons were weak but that
was my understanding at that time...I've learnt more since then, but one of those happy consequences is the quality of the documentation. Certainly English is a
second language to the Japanese manufacturers but the quality, readability, detail and accuracy is superb. Why it is that so many of the Chinese manufacturers
documentation is that poor as to be unreadable and lacks any useful detail? Roger has pointed out that many of the Chinese companies we deal with are just
selling houses, they don't make and certainly don't design anything they sell. They don't answer questions because they can't.

That brings us back to your problem. In absence of documentation then your are going to have to measure or otherwise characterise the inputs to your drive
and the outputs of your BoB. Do you have any documentation at all? Even if its no more than 'output opto isolated' for instance may well give us enough clues
as to how its arranged internally.

Knowing the required signalling requirements of your drivers would be especially welcome. If the drivers have an IC which is very common with the lower
current drivers the input characteristics are largely determined by the IC which should be searchable. Do they have a driver IC and can you read the part number?

Craig

6063

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 takes 30 seconds to start

« on: November 03, 2017, 07:36:16 PM »

Crikey smurph,

because I touch the dirty internet with it.

I literally roll-in-it, revel-in-it and yet haven't had any major problems.

What really annoys me about anti-virus is that it assumes that anti-virus is THE MOST IMPORTANT task in the world and thinks nothing of stopping
your machine, or worse crashing it to go about its task. I think the manufacturers of anti-virus software are delighted to have all their customers report in
on a regular basis...part of that 'ongoing mutually profitable relationship' no doubt.

Worse is that all the various software manufacturers have us absolutely dependent on software updates. I mean if a piece of code works OK today it should
without change work OK tomorrow shouldn't it? There was a thread on this forum just a wee while ago where a guy had got the latest build of Mach4, I think,
only to find it screwed up his working system. When I asked him why he updated...because it was recommended....why? It added no new features that he
needed or wanted nor did he require it to fix something that was broken, just Pavlov's Dog reaction to a later build. Sorry, one of my pet peeves, you may have thought
of me as sane, I'm not!

Craig

6064

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Macro help mcCntlGcodeExecuteWait

« on: November 03, 2017, 07:18:53 PM »

Hi,
found this on page 36 of the Mill Gcode manual.

Craig

6065

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 takes 30 seconds to start

« on: November 03, 2017, 06:56:09 PM »

Hi,
my laptop is a 2GHz i7 with 16 GB and it takes about 8 seconds to load and draw Mach4. Its hardly a powerful or fast machine by todays standards. I don't
have ANY anti virus loaded or running. I personally am of the opinion that anti-virus software IS A VIRUS!. I have been running that way since I got it about five years
ago. Every once in a while I my have to go and dig out some malware but have not had any issues otherwise.

My little dual core Atom that runs my mill loads and draws Mach4 in about the same time. It doesn't have or need anti-virus either.

Craig

6066

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Macro help mcCntlGcodeExecuteWait

« on: November 03, 2017, 06:46:03 PM »

Hi Rt,
not sure this will help but its something I had to learn and it caused some confusion and angst before I understood.

g83 is modal, in fact quite a few of the canned cycles are. so if you write:
g83 x0 z.6 r0 q.30 p.1 f4
and then in subsequent lines
x0 z 1
x.5 z1.5
x1 z2.0
at each line the machine would attempt a g83 cycle with parameters
g83 x.5 z1.5 r0q.30 f4 for instance

Ignoring the fact that these cycles are nonsensical with your machine I point this out because you machine is reading
another line of code and attempting to do another g83 cycle despite the fact that you don't want it. What I would suggest is that you conclude your
g83 cycle with another motion code that will break the modal nature of g83. I haven't used g80 myself but I think its intent is to break a modal.

g83 x0 z.6 r0 q.30 p.1 f4 \n g80

I would be using mcCntlGcodeExecuteWait.

Craig

6067

General Mach Discussion / Re: A-axis rotary lathe question for Mach 3

« on: November 03, 2017, 06:24:29 PM »

Hi Halfmill,
if you wish your rotary axis just to turn at a constant speed then its not really an 'axis' but rather a spindle. An axis as far as CNC is concerned is a drive/motor
that can be driven in angular synchronicity with other axes. The most obvious example is threading, one axis turns whereas the other axis advances a precise
(pitch of the thread) distance per revolution.

An axis can be indexing....that is to say that you can drive to a particular and precise angle but not be able to synchronise motion with another axis. An example
of that sort of thing is a dividing head for making gears, you can advance 2.345 degrees say, and then have the mill cut the next tooth. This kind of axis is
called indexing-out of band.

The sort of motion you require is just a spindle, rotation but not synchronised to any other axes nor does it stop so indexing makes no sense either.

Could you not disconnect your regular spindle and use Step/Dir signals for a spindle but hook it to your 'A spindle' instead?

Craig

6068

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach 4 with ESS locks up on Cycle Start

« on: November 03, 2017, 05:33:07 PM »

Hi,
by virtue of the large numbers of IO and that the manufacturer has been careful to label them all it makes sense to use their profile, it saves you having to type
in all those pin names. There is nothing magic about it though. I use MB-02V6 BoBs from Homan Desgins in Austrailia and they don't have a ready made profile,
you make your own. You could do the same thing.

Craig

6069

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Update error

« on: November 03, 2017, 03:03:25 PM »

Hi,

I have searched the entire screen tree for a dro_11 and there is none

I think dro_11 was one that got overwritten. The code which populates the dro with numbers is still there, its part of your profile which because of its unique name
was not overwritten.

Sorry, its looking increasingly that you'll have to go back and redo that work. I had to do the same thing. It did teach me to have both unique profiles AND screen sets.

Craig

6070

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach 4 with ESS locks up on Cycle Start

« on: November 03, 2017, 02:55:35 PM »

Hi,

back door settings for things like CP and and "connection OK" signals

if I'm not mistaken those features/indicators are part of the plugin, you don't set them or have any control over them, Warp9 put them there and there
they will stay irrespective of what you try to screw up in your profile!

Craig