Messages

11

General Mach Discussion / Re: Sherline Motor Troubles

« on: November 24, 2014, 08:25:39 AM »

Wow, I guess it has been a while since I've had time to work on this project. Now that I am though I've got a few questions again.

To update:

I'm no longer using the sherline boards to control the lathe. Instead I am using a geckodrive 540, which seems to work great.

The PMDX-126 and geckodrive 540 seem to play together nicely, but only when I use the mach3 profile that is provided by geckodrive. This would be fine except the profile doesn't seem to save any of the changes I make to it, such as port addresses, input/output assignments, plugins, etc. Any idea why it will not save this information?

I've made a seperate profile in the meantime to continue working out the bugs, but I've noticed that the motors speed is dramatically less in my custom profile than in the geckodrive profile. I've set the motor tuning to the exact same, except for the step/dir pulse which the geckodrive profile has set to 2606. My custom profile won't save that setting.

So basically, I either need to figure out how to get the geckodrive profile to save, or I need to figure out why the motors are turning slowly in my custom profile.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

12

General Mach Discussion / Re: Motor Issue?

« on: May 05, 2014, 10:35:47 AM »

Yes, I have two physical parallel ports on this computer. I've got Mach3 communicating with both now.

I had been inputting the hex address for parallel port as "0xDD08" instead of "DD08". Simple mistake, but made me think I had a bad PCI card slot or something.

My only other issue is one with the PMDX-126 itself. Which I suppose I should go talk to them about.

I have a PMDX-109 output board attached to the PMDX-126 to add some extra relays to control a number of things. Not sure how to configure the PMDX-126 for expanded output mode.

13

General Mach Discussion / Re: Motor Issue?

« on: May 05, 2014, 10:02:46 AM »

LPT1 is correct, I'm just using the printer port on the PC, and the PMDX's inputs show up on the diagnostics page when pressed. I'm not sure how to find out the address of LPT2 though, I'll dig around in the device manager tab and see if I can find a different address. I'll also switch the dir port to 2, and update the thread with what happens. Thanks!

14

General Mach Discussion / Motor Issue?

« on: May 05, 2014, 08:41:33 AM »

Hello,

I've posted in the past about my sherline 4-axis set up, but I'm having some new difficulties at the moment.

Just to recap:

I have a PMDX-126 plugged in to LPT1 on this computer. It is controlling things like INPUTS to active OEMs, as well as starting/stopping a laser that is wired to it.

On LPT2 I have my sherline 4-axis control board hooked up. There is where I run into issues.

I can't get any response from the motors when they are plugged into to LPT2. I've attached the first tab of the ports and pins config page, as well as the setup for my motors page. I'm not sure if the dir port has to be the same as the step port. Even if it does, I still get no response when both step port and dir port are set at port 2.

I would just run the motors on LPT1, but mach3 won't let me change the PMDX's location to LPT2. Everytime I try, I get a "need external estop" issue.

I would be very grateful for any suggestions on how to proceed.

15

General Mach Discussion / Re: Sherline 4 Axis Mill (For Laser Welding)

« on: February 25, 2014, 02:58:51 PM »

So I've got some time to work on this again (finally) and I'm still pretty much at the same point as before.

I can only get one of the boards to work at a time.

If I make the motor control board communicate with port 1, they turn perfectly fine, but the breakout board for OEM triggers does not.

If i make the breakout board communicate with port 1, it works fine, but the motors do not move at all.

That makes me think that my second parallel port is not functioning correctly. But I'm not entirely sure how to fix it. The hex address is correct as far as I can tell.

Any ideas would be very appreciated.

16

General Mach Discussion / Re: Sherline Motor Troubles

« on: January 28, 2014, 01:35:58 PM »

So, I've gotten the motors running. The port I had the port installed in was dead. I've got another issue that is hopefully easy to solve. My motors are only running in the positive direction, regardless of the jogging wheel being rotated CW or CCW. Any ideas of why this could be?

17

General Mach Discussion / Re: Sherline Motor Troubles

« on: January 22, 2014, 02:57:29 PM »

The sherline board is grounded.

I'll rig up an external Estop and try the sherline board on port 1 to see if I can make it play. If it works I guess its some conflict with the serial port settings.

18

General Mach Discussion / Re: Sherline Motor Troubles

« on: January 22, 2014, 02:39:13 PM »

I set the fields to what you have listed, but the motors will not turn when pressing the up or down keys.

Somebody here at work says that maybe there is a conflict between my serial port's IRQs, but I'm not sure how to change those (Or even what they are really).

19

General Mach Discussion / Sherline Motor Troubles

« on: January 22, 2014, 10:24:02 AM »

Hello all,

I posted a while back in a previous thread about this machine, but this is a new problem. To summarize:

I've taken the motor driver board out of a sherline PC and attached it to a sherline XYZA set up.

I also am using a PMDX126 with a PMDX109(Output) breakout board to control a welding laser's operation, as well as a gas solenoid.

There is an iMachIII pendant being used as well to jog the table.

I'll attach my XML to this post if it helps.

At the moment I have the PMDX126/109 connected to serial port 1. Mach3 sees the Estop and all of the buttons I have attached to the board. These buttons will control things like cycle start, cycle stop, and reset. Those work just fine with OEMs and a few custom m-functions.

The sherline motors are not moving however. They will not move with a gcode or with the pendant. In the past I was able to jog the table back and forth just fine with only the sherline board plugged in to serial port 1.

When trying to jog the table the coordinates for the axis selected moves on the DRO, but the motors will not. I can hear that the motors have power, so they appear to be getting some signal from the motor controller.

I've tried switching the motor controller to port 1 and the PMDXs to port 2, but Mach3 can't see the Estop when the PMDX is in port 2.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

20

General Mach Discussion / Re: Sherline 4 Axis Mill (For Laser Welding)

« on: October 25, 2013, 02:49:35 PM »

I would love to answer that question, but unfortunately, I blew out my PMDX board. There was a water leak on the floor from another machine in the room...

I tried turning the E-stop to active low in the ports and pins tab to no avail.