Messages

6171

General Mach Discussion / Re: How to resume cutting from a spot where axis motors stopped

« on: October 24, 2017, 09:34:35 PM »

Hi garylucas,
probably just as bloody well....LOL

Craig

6172

PoKeys / Re: Emergency reset

« on: October 24, 2017, 07:47:58 PM »

Hi,
you say that you don't have an Estop? That's pretty bold, its about the ONLY input that has to be there.

Have you assigned a pin for an Estop? If you have then may I suggest terminating it with  a low value resistor,
say 400 ohms, to either earth or logic high so that the Estop is not active. My thinking goes that if a pin is unconnected
noise impulses may cause the signal to go active.

Craig

6173

General Mach Discussion / Re: How to resume cutting from a spot where axis motors stopped

« on: October 24, 2017, 07:41:56 PM »

Hi,
if you can get your head around how Mach goes about it preparatory move you are more than half way home.

When you hit <run from here> Mach does a dummy run of the Gcode to that point so it knows what the modal settings
are and the position on the toolplath just prior the the 'run from here' line. Mach will ask to do a preparatory move to go
from where the machine is currently to where it needs to be to start at the line you have nominated.

As garylucas has pointed out; if the preparatory move is to a point above the work surface all well and good, if its below
the surface the tool will drive to that location in linear co-ordinated fashion and gouge your work or break something.
For this reason there are a couple of options within the Preparatory Move dialogue to overcome that shortcoming.
If at this point you think 'this must be a bug in Mach' you're wrong, its the way Mach is and you have to learn to use it as is,
no whinging and moaning...no one will listen.

Craig

6174

General Mach Discussion / Re: How to resume cutting from a spot where axis motors stopped

« on: October 24, 2017, 07:09:27 PM »

Hi,
the 'run from here' code has caused innumerable crashes over the years...it does work but you need to practice some
until your happy with the logic sequence...and just because you think it should work this way DOES NOT mean it does
work that way.

Craig

6175

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Switching to a Ethernet SmoothStepper controller.

« on: October 24, 2017, 01:29:36 PM »

Hi,
my understanding is that quite a few pendants don't work with Mach4.
I use a VistaCNC P1A with a Mach4 plugin. It wasn't seamless to install and get going but going great ever since. It does
have a USB cable.

The only thing Chinese I buy is chop suey. Well that's not correct actually but if you buy Chinese electronics and when it s*********ts itself your our of luck.

Craig

6176

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Lines in the tool path window

« on: October 24, 2017, 01:16:07 PM »

Hi,
that grey colour seems like a poor choice for a background colour. wx4.set has a light blue as background as default and is much easier to see.
Aside from anything else blue doesn't make me want to slash my wrists like grey! LOL

Craig

6177

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Switching to a Ethernet SmoothStepper controller.

« on: October 24, 2017, 01:10:30 PM »

Hi,
BalloonEngineer has it right, you'll need a 26pin IDC to DB25 cable to plugin the G540. That will leave two 26pin IDC sockets on the ESS free.
Each of those sockets has another complete parallel ports worth of IO. You probably don't have to but it is recommended that you plug a regular
breakout board into those sockets rather than risk blowing the ESS by going in direct.

Given that port 1 is usually used for the motor outputs so pin 2-9 are outputs buts ports 2 and 3 those pins can be either inputs OR outputs.
If you use them as inputs as most do the you have pins 2-13 and 15 as inputs in each port, ie 13 in each port....swags of them!

Craig

6178

General Mach Discussion / Re: Backlash on X axis changes to A axis

« on: October 24, 2017, 12:50:43 PM »

Hi,
possible but unlikely, thousands use Mach3 without problem.

I see one fault with your setup.
You have assigned pins 12,11,10 and 13 as homes for X,Y,Z and A respectively. You've then assigned Estop to pin 13 ie you have repeated assignment
of pin 13. In the first instance assign A home to pin 12. Then the X home switch will trigger both X and A home.

Shouldn't hurt but disable your probe input.
Again shouldn't hurt but disable output#2 and output#3

Also intrigued that you have for X,Y and A your steps per set at 40. Seems very low...how did you arrive at that number? How many microsteps have you set for your
drivers?

Looks like your drivers and BoB are all on the one board, how did you shift the input signals to the X and A drivers?

Craig

6179

General Mach Discussion / Re: Backlash on X axis changes to A axis

« on: October 24, 2017, 03:01:15 AM »

Hi,
oops.. will finish the post.

Both steppers should now behave identically.  If they don't, then one of the drivers is faulty. If they do, then Machs slaved signals are screwy.

Can you post some pics of the BoB and the stepper drivers? What sort of motion controller are you using; parallel port, USB, Ethernet?
Can you post your xml file?

Craig

6180

General Mach Discussion / Re: Backlash on X axis changes to A axis

« on: October 24, 2017, 02:55:48 AM »

Hi,
the first pic is the ballscrew and I would expect if it has any backlash it would be very small, measured with a micrometer if you can measure it at all.
We can safely say the fault is not backlash.

Please double check that the X and A axes are slaved together. Config/Slave Axis....A axis slaved to X axis  <restart>

Do both steppers turn the same way, at least when they are working properly? The reason I ask is because I have a test that might point you in the right
direction. If both motors turn the same way then take both Direction wires from the two drivers and hook them both to X Dir pin of the BoB. Take the two
Step wires from the two drives and hook them both to X Step pin of the BoB.