Messages

6401

General Mach Discussion / Re: Servos vs Hybrid Steppers with CS labs controller

« on: October 07, 2017, 06:17:34 AM »

Hi Mick,

Lol yes the wife would have a fit or insist on spending the same on lotions and haircuts.

don't want too much of that going on, the UK balance of trade may never recover!

Even a simple potentiometer with a 9V battery would be enuf to cause the servo to move.
Twiddle the pot backwards and forwards and the axis should follow. With just one 9V battery I would expect the axis to be restricted to one half
its travel, the right half say, and if you reversed the battery then it would work in its left half. You will have to coax it, if you attempt to cause the
axis to move from point A near one end of it travel to point B at the other end instantaneously as in changing the battery polarity it will fail as a
following error. None the less you should be able to get the axes to move. It will probably require an enable signal.

Given that you are of the opinion that the servos are OK then maybe fooling around with bits of wire and batteries doesn't appeal.

Craig

6402

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: New people welcome !! Come in here and introduce your self!

« on: October 07, 2017, 05:56:19 AM »

Hi CNCASHMAN,
I live in New Zealand so if you shout real loud with the wind in the west I'll probably hear you. My guess is that if you are trying to get
a Chinese made USB controller to work you will have occasion to SHOUT VERY LOUDLY INDEED.

Plenty of people do get them to work but they are frustrating. If you want the real deal buy a Smootstepper, an Ethernet one preferred from
Peter Homman, Homman Designs in Melbourne. Good bloke, knows his s*********t and won't let you down.

I know you don't really want to be told to go buy something new and moderately expensive but if you want to get your machine up and running
reliably then a Smoothstepper is a good investment.

Craig

6403

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: G-code execution from screen button.

« on: October 07, 2017, 05:16:14 AM »

Hi,
that API call is useful for Gcode snippets of two-three-four lines... not 2000.

The way to do that is to have a button call a Gcode file, three buttons, three files. To my knowledge the Gcode interpreter can only have one
active Gcode job. So if you hit button #2 the code which had been running will be closed and the file associated with button #2 loaded and then run.

Another possibility it to have one large file with three sections, one section associated with one button. This would mean that just the one Gcode file
would be loaded and it would not be necessary to unload between buttons. It might be possible to have yet other sections that control the jig and/or
clamping of the part.

Just exactly how you go about indentiying your part zero for the three different operations would require some thought.

Are the Gcode chunks likely to change often?

Craig

6404

General Mach Discussion / Re: Servos vs Hybrid Steppers with CS labs controller

« on: October 07, 2017, 04:49:32 AM »

Hi Mick,
yeah, servos even cheap ones are still expensive and if you try to buy to match your budget then you are entirely likely to end up with under
specified servos and all that doe-ray-me would be wasted. Go on....your amongst friends....you can admit that the missus will discombobulate you!

What condition are your existing servos in? I'm wondering if you could not build a simple analogue circuit and hook it to your drivers to see how
the servos responded. You certainly don't want to be investing in controllers if your existing servos and/or their drives are faulty.

My training and job is electronics. In the situation where I was trying to evaluate your machine for overhaul/repair or modification I would grab
my function generator and set it to sinusoidal wave of about 5V peak to peak at 1/4 Hz and put that directly into the analogue input of the drives.
Provided you didn't crank the frequency up to much and therefore try to accelerate beyond the servos max then it should move backwards and
forwards smoothly. A sawtooth wave could also be used; the reversal of a sawtooth wave represents a spike in acceleration. The need to keep the
amplitude down and the frequency of reversal low would be paramount otherwise the acceleration spikes would be such that the servo has no real
chance to stay in sync with the input and it would fault out 'following error'

You may have noticed on Ebay Direct Digital Synthesis function generators of modest but adequate performance can be had for less than $20, God
bless or Chinese friends. If you don't have a signal generator or know someone you could borrow one then one of these cheap units would do the
trick.

Craig

6405

General Mach Discussion / Re: A Good Source for Bit ?

« on: October 07, 2017, 03:37:45 AM »

Hi,
last lot of stuff I got from Drillman was these:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/0-50mm-0197-2-FLUTE-MICRO-CARBIDE-ENDMILLS-Kyocera-Tycom-1600-0197-079-/151724700078?hash=item23537f31ae
They were on special at $2.65 ea so I bought 30 of them. Use them for circuit boards, Kyocera Tycom  is a good brand, just the dogs dangly bits.

Craig

6406

General Mach Discussion / Re: One stepper Motor Acting Up

« on: October 07, 2017, 12:17:12 AM »

Hi,
that's good news. Excepting the rotor there are no moving parts in a stepper, it ought to be possible to make such simple devices without
fault. Roger was quite right to smell rat.

The only real quality issue I can think of that would separate good from not so good is insulation resistance, and not just the normal static tests
but the ability to withstand high voltages at elevated temperature working conditions for years at a time.
I bought Vexta 5 phase steppers for my mill and paid a real high premium for them. I wondered after I had committed to buy whether it was justified.
I also use Vexta drivers, they are 230V input with a switch mode supply to the driver.  The DC link voltage is 150V. This is the highest voltage
I've ever heard of for a stepper motor. Whether the premium I paid is justified I'm glad that Vexta quality is such that their motors withstand those
voltages under working conditions and have done for four years.

Craig

6407

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Help with Lua error "Invalid value 2 for a boolean key "WholeWord" in config fi

« on: October 07, 2017, 12:02:54 AM »

Hi Durero,
I did as you suggested and the warning has disappeared....you beaut.....

Thanks again.

Craig

6408

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Auto Leveling - "Gcode Ripper" for Mach4

« on: October 06, 2017, 11:57:57 PM »

Hi,
as the writer of the two Mach 4 macros m40 and m41 I have tested them extensively making circuit boards with Mach4 Hobby.
Both my macros were inspired by m400 and m401 which are released in the LuaExamples folder of Mach 4 release.

The text search/manipulation code in m41 is fairly amateurish, my first solo Lua coding endeavour. I have subsequently updated some of the text
manipulation code to be more readable but it doesn't affect the results at all and so haven't bothered posting it.

Should I do so in future I will include a copyright and an MIT licence.

Craig

6409

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Help with Lua error "Invalid value 2 for a boolean key "WholeWord" in config fi

« on: October 06, 2017, 10:52:13 PM »

Hi,
I've searched the .ini file for 'WholeWord' and various other names but not found anything related to the error.

I'm now thinking that the configuration file referred to in the error message is not the profile .ini file but may be something to do with
McLuaEditor or something.

Craig

6410

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Help with Lua error "Invalid value 2 for a boolean key "WholeWord" in config fi

« on: October 06, 2017, 10:08:41 PM »

Hi,
I've got exactly the same problem. I was shagging around writing some code and I think as a result of a misclick I introduced a dodgy number
as a Boolean into the .ini file. I haven't found it yet but it doesn't seem to have broken anything else.

Craig