Messages

7111

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: How to Add the A axes to mach4 screen

« on: March 05, 2017, 12:55:14 PM »

Hi,
no. Your existing profile has been modified to use a new screen set, that's all.

Craig

7112

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: How to Add the A axes to mach4 screen

« on: March 05, 2017, 05:02:11 AM »

Hi Mike,
dude1 is right, under View menu Load Screen and choose wx4.set.

If you like the screen set you need to copy it and rename it, something like Mikeswx4.set. Then can alter and edit and add functions
to it in any way you like. When you get a later release of Mach4, they come out every few months, it will include a new wx4.set.
If you've edited or changed your existing wx4,set without renaming it all your edits/changes will be overwritten and lost.
I've had that happen and its pretty frustrating.

While on the subject its worthwhile to on occasion to save all your customisations and preferred settings by using Help/Support/Package Current Profile
and give it a distinct name and maybe a date. If you screw up bigtime you can go back and retrieve it.

Craig

7113

General Mach Discussion / Re: Need Mach3 help

« on: March 04, 2017, 11:24:52 PM »

Hi,
USB breakout board?. Bit of a contradiction. A USB connected external motion controller..yes.

What is the manufacturer and model of your board?

Craig

7114

General Mach Discussion / Re: Parallel port driver does not support EPP - Any alternative drivers for EPP?

« on: March 04, 2017, 11:09:24 PM »

Hi BretC,
not sure that this is the indentical card but it has the same IC. I seem to recall having to go to the Moschip website and trying a few drivers
until I got it to work. I used it for three years as a second port on my Mach3 machine on an Atom miniITX PC. Have updated to Mach4 and
a SmoothStepper since.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/One-Port-Parallel-IEEE-1284-PCI-Host-Controller-Card-Chipset-MCS9865-for-Moschip-/142065138484?hash=item2113bdfb34

Craig

7115

General Mach Discussion / Re: Parallel port driver does not support EPP - Any alternative drivers for EPP?

« on: March 04, 2017, 10:50:06 PM »

Hi BretC,
some while ago another member who been doing this a while said

This is probably an old problem sadly known to many of us. Some history will explain it.

The original LPT chip was designed as a general purpose IO chip. It was adopted by IBM to drive a parallel port printer. But the chip had many other features, including a bidirectional archirtecture. This was used by more than just Mach, to do many things.

The chip was discontinued, so the LPT was lost. Some IO card mfrs saw an opportuntiy here, and made some PCI boards to drive a printer. But read my lips: to drive a printer. These PCI cards do not have the full bi-directional features as used by Mach and other specialist 'things'.

Sad, but I do not know of any PCI cards for LPT which will work properly. Hence we go to the Ethernet and an external engine.

Cheers
Roger

The upshot is that some cards work and some don't and its not clear from their advertising.

I bought a card, I'll try and find a link, but it has a Moschip IC on it and it does have the same capabilities as the original ICs as described by
Roger. It turns out that there are several cards, different manufacturers, but all use the same Moschip IC and with the right driver all work with Mach3.

Craig

7116

General Mach Discussion / Re: Drive fault input

« on: March 04, 2017, 10:10:28 PM »

Hi Don,
the error signal is being generated by the servo drive so it is an input to Mach3. On the Config/Ports and Pins/Input Signals page
enable Input#1 and assign a port and available pin.

You should now see the Input1 LED on the Diagnostics page light up each time the drive faults.

It will now be necessary to write some code to monitor the input and take some action. A macro which runs at intervals, ie a macro pump,
is one option. Another is using a brain. In either case the input is monitored and something like a feedhold instruction issued if a servo error
is detected. I don't think an Estop would work as it disables your machine so how can you ever reset the drive.

Craig

7117

General Mach Discussion / Re: Cnc router motor upgrade opinions

« on: March 04, 2017, 03:06:15 PM »

Hi All,
have just been looking at the Leadshine website, all sorts of goodies...

I have not had the chance to play with any of their gear and ask what is your opinion re quality/reliability?

Those DM series drivers look like the 'bees knees', doesn't specify the peak output voltage but guess its rather more than 80V,
really good for high speed ops. The Vexta drivers I use also have 230VAC input and I got a surprise when I put my scope on
the output and found 150V peak output. Must stress the stepper insulation like hell but I've been giving them what-o for a few
years without fault and they're not new when I got them.

Given that high voltage is the simplest expedient to overcoming inductance induced delay I would have thought manufacturers would
be pushing for higher voltage specs, vacuum impregnation and that sort of thing, the same as they do for servos.

Craig

7118

VB and the development of wizards / Re: Arduino output as a input for mach3

« on: March 04, 2017, 02:28:23 PM »

Hi,
there used to be some good videos on the Artsoft website about writing scripts but are missing at the moment.

The script editor is found on the 'Operator' tab, 'VB Script Editor'. It behaves much like a text editor like notepad. Write your script
and save as M150. If you click the folder icon you will see a list of the existing macros, you may be surprised how many there are.
Open some of them to see how they are written. M600 is a real doozy.

Craig

7119

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: How does G31 Behave?

« on: March 03, 2017, 07:40:40 PM »

Hi Chad,
there is quite a good description of how probing works in the Mach4 Help Docs, probing.txt.

As Smurph pointed out probing is largely a motion controller function. probing.txt is really a description of how the motion
controller must operate.

When Mach encounters a G31 move it issues a straight linear co-ordinated move with exact stop. It is the motion controller
which detects the probe event, aborts the remainder of the move by flushing the motion planner and reports its stopped
position back to Mach.

If you open Machs log and pin in to 'always on top' and run some probe cycles you can see the handoff points. Worthy to
look at for an understanding.

Craig

7120

General Mach Discussion / Re: what computer for Mach3 - is "all in one" OK - is a parallel port mandatory?

« on: March 03, 2017, 05:14:32 PM »

Hi,
I am surprised that the UC100 didn't work, they have a good reputation and following.

I would recommend either the Ethernet SmoothStepper or one of the PMDX boards. They have been in the business of external
motion controllers forever. They both run Mach3 with a plugin but also have Mach4 plugins available, so if you update to Mach4
at some later date no need to buy new hardware just download the plugin and go for it. Both are pretty good value.

Another maker producing good value products is PoKeys . CSlabs and VitalSystems make good stuff and 'industrial' grade but somewhat
more expensive.

Craig