Messages

761

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Enforce Ref-All-Home

« on: March 15, 2022, 11:24:18 PM »

Hi,
I had for some time had programmed that <Cycle Start> and <MDI Cycle Start> were greyed out, ie inactive until the machine was referenced.
I had a smaller auxillary <MDI Cycle Start> if I absolutely had to have movement prior to referencing the machine. It worked perfectly well.

Craig

762

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Problem losing Y axis zero coordinates mostly after toolchange

« on: March 15, 2022, 05:40:39 PM »

Hi,
ALL steppers lose torque the faster they go, that's just plain physics. It applies to open loop AND closed loop stepper equally.
Closing the loop does not increase the power, the torque, the speed or anything else the manufacturer tried to BS you on.

There are two broad strategies for reducing the torque degradation with speed; is to minimise the inductance, and your steppers have 2.0mH, which
is quite respectable. The other strategy is to use the highest possible voltage you can, usually limited by the electronics of the driver, in your case 50V.
I would use 50V, or as you are likely to find 48V is more common.

Craig

763

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Problem losing Y axis zero coordinates mostly after toolchange

« on: March 15, 2022, 05:10:20 PM »

Hi,
a 24V power supply for your steppers??? That's bloody hopeless, and 36V is not much better, you should be at least 60VDC if not 80VDC.

Craig

764

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Problem losing Y axis zero coordinates mostly after toolchange

« on: March 15, 2022, 04:22:23 PM »

Hi,
I would guess that you have g0 move immediately after your m6, and your y axis is intermittently losing steps on that move.

What I would like to note and also seems a bit strange (guess this has a connection to my problem) to me is that recently, since 2-3 weeks, I have to enter half of the pulse/unit per motor when setting the motors on the Y-axis (2 motors), so that the axis runs at the same speed as X and Z. Thought first that was perhaps a peculiarity of Mach4 but then tried it with Mach3 and on other machines and also there I suddenly had to halve the steps of the Y-axis even I never changed something at that machine. As an example, on the 2 milling machines, 1605/2005 ballscrews with 1/16 steps have a pulse/unit of 640 default on X and Y and 800/640 (1604/1605 ballsrews) on the Z. Now I have to enter 320 on the Y and 640/800 on the others so that the axes run at the same speed. I don't know if anyone knows this problem, but if so I would be interested to know where this comes from.

This is very strange and is I suspect either the cause or at least a symptom of the fault you describe. Solve this and I'd bet you problem goes away.

You say you have two y axis motors? Are they identical? How have you slaved one to the other?

Can you disconnect each coupler so that you can move them independently. I would start by making sure that you can set the steps/unit in some logical fashion for each motor individually.
I'm wondering if you have a signalling clash or a signal timing issue that is causing onlt every second pulse to be read.

Craig

765

Mach4 Toolbox / Re: Problems with Touch button module

« on: March 14, 2022, 07:24:45 PM »

Hi,
in the Touch-Off module many of the g1 moves are actually coded as g31 moves.

The idea is that if you need the probe tip to move to a specific location prior to the genuine g31 probe move that it makes sense to use g31 rather than g1. Thus
if the probe accidentally makes contact with the workpiece it will stop, whereas a g1 would just carry on an crunch the probe.

The program therefore contains g31 moves which are never intended to have a contact event, and the default behaviour of the ESS is to fault on a non contact situation.
Use the feature I told you about.

Craig

766

Mach4 Toolbox / Re: Problems with Touch button module

« on: March 13, 2022, 07:41:41 PM »

Hi,
if a g31 probing move is made and the probe DOES NOT report a contact BEFORE the terminal position in the move then the ESS regards that as a fault and will stop Mach.
Thereafter if Mach tries to reference the number reflecting the probe contact position, it will fail because NO contact position was reported. Likewise when Mach goes to shut down
it will report an error because it went to store a number but that number has never been populated.

You need to recheck and double check your probe circuit. Does the Probe Contact LED light up on probe contact?

You can alter the ESS's behaviour in response to a non-contact fault in Configure/Plugins/ESSvs nnn/Probing......uncheck item 2.

Craig

767

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: How to use Automatic tool depth setting with offsets

« on: March 10, 2022, 10:09:55 PM »

Hi,
the best way to visualise what measurements go into making the controlled point location is the 'Diagnostics Tab'

The two APIs you have tried relate to the <Work Offset> and the <G92 Offset> whereas you need to look at <Tool Offset>.

The tool APIs:

Code: [Select]

rc = mc.mcToolSetData(
number mInst,
number Type,
number Toolnumber,
number val);

Description:
Set the offset values for each tool.

Parameters: Parameter Description
mInst The controller instance.
Type MTOOL_MILL_X, MTOOL_MILL_X_W, MTOOL_MILL_Y, MTOOL_MILL_Y_W, MTOOL_MILL_HEIGHT, MTOOL_MILL_HEIGHT_W, MTOOL_MILL_RAD, MTOOL_MILL_RAD_W, MTOOL_MILL_POCKET, MTOOL_LATHE_X, MTOOL_LATHE_X_W, MTOOL_LATHE_Y, MTOOL_LATHE_Y_W, MTOOL_LATHE_Z, MTOOL_LATHE_Z_W, MTOOL_LATHE_POCKET, MTOOL_LATHE_TIPRAD, MTOOL_MILL_RAD, MTOOL_LATHE_TIPDIR
Toolnumber Tool number to be set
val Value to set the selected offset.

Craig

768

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Superimposing an out of bounds axis on the Z axis in Mach4 Plasma

« on: March 09, 2022, 10:19:59 PM »

Hi,
I don't think an OB axis can be superimposed exactly. My understanding is that "Axis Overload' is employed. Thus tyhe Z axis motor is controlled by the Mach normally
but the 'overload component' adds or subtract a few steps to the Z axis.

Try searching for overload axis.

Craig

769

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 newbie with questions

« on: March 09, 2022, 10:08:44 PM »

Hi,
use Explorer or similar to open
c/:Mach4Hobby/Profiles/<YourProfileName>/Macros

There you will see all that there is. If you open the macro editor you will only see the files of type .mcs ie source code files. The other files like .mcc
and .lua files will not open with the editor because they are compiled files.

With a new profile I would expect to see two m6 files, namely an m6.mcs and a m6.mcc, four m162 1n2 m163 files, again  types .mcs and .mcc respectively.

If you have copied any macros into this new profile you will see them as well.

There may not be a mcLua.mcc file at all. This file is generated by gathering up all the macros and other Lua fragments and then compiled. It is this file that runs at runtime.
If you delete it for instance, Mach will look for it,not find it, and so go through the process of gathering all the component Lua parts and compiling it anew.

Craig

770

General Mach Discussion / Re: Cut path changes with each pass. At end of run ends offset from original zero.

« on: March 08, 2022, 02:46:41 PM »

Hi,

motors 40V tuned down to 38v.

I think that is too low, it wouldn't 'pull the skin off a rice pudding'

All steppers lose torque the faster they go, it the physics of steppers. Using low inductance steppers in the first line of defence agsint that degradation. Using
the highest possible driving voltage is the second.

If a given stepper has an inductance of 6mH, not an uncommon spec, then expect it to have less than 5% of its holding torque at 1000rpm. The same size motor but 1.5mH
will retain 40% of its torque at 1000rpm.

Look at the specs of your steppers and determine the inductance....is it 2mH or less?, in which case good, or is it 4mH or more?, in which case you may need to replace the steppers.

You really want drivers capable of 80V and use an 80V supply....then your steppers will take notice and vastly decrease the propensity to losing steps at speed.

Craig