Messages

1111

General Mach Discussion / Re: how to configure the estop?

« on: September 24, 2016, 05:56:30 AM »

Simplest things are the hardest to spot

Glad its making chips.

1112

General Mach Discussion / Re: Stepper issues

« on: September 24, 2016, 03:27:03 AM »

Might be easier to throw in a UC100 and go USB instead or parallel?

Not too cheap but my one has been reliable so far.

1113

General Mach Discussion / Re: Bridgeport Knee Mill Conversion?

« on: September 23, 2016, 03:38:18 PM »

Thanks, thats a good point, will be fully researching this before diving in

1114

General Mach Discussion / Re: Stepper issues

« on: September 23, 2016, 03:36:17 PM »

Ah so you changed the port hardware after the install?
That can do things, try running the port speed test program.

The estop with port 0 set simply will do nothing, there is no port zero so its ignored, if it has an estop button it won't function, not in Mach any way.

I have dumped the whole folder on a few times, its pretty tolerant as far as software goes but does always need a full install first and testing.

1115

General Mach Discussion / Re: Bridgeport Knee Mill Conversion?

« on: September 23, 2016, 03:14:47 PM »

Still researching this, i was looking at mounting a differential output encoder somewhere in the head, maybe a small pulley mounted on the spindle running a lightweight toothed belt - plenty of room in there when the mechanical speed stuff is pulled out.

I am pretty certain it needs an index pulse.

1116

General Mach Discussion / Re: Stepper issues

« on: September 23, 2016, 03:09:07 PM »

I can see the Estop is enabled and active low but has no port assigned?
Looks like pin10 port 1 is already in use.

In general config, "Use Watchdogs" is checked, no idea what it does but have read bad things about having it checked

Not much else i can see as long as the 0xd address really is the correct one for the parallel port.

Did you do a full install of Mach or just copy the folder over??
It really needs a proper install, the port test running and then you can dump the old folder on top.

1117

General Mach Discussion / Re: Bridgeport Knee Mill Conversion?

« on: September 23, 2016, 02:54:36 PM »

Tested the tapping head tonight in some scrap, should work very nicely, only needs a short 0.8s dwell at the mid-point to allow the clutch to disengage. Have to do the spot-drill and drilling as one setup then follow with tapping as the knee has to drop a lot to fit the tapping head in 

Also discovered that run-from-here seems to make a mess out of tool-length offsets, no damage as it was only dry run and also the first time i tried RFH, In the end it was safer to do the part of code i wanted as a separate file, i think i'll keep that in mind.

1118

General Mach Discussion / Re: Stepper issues

« on: September 23, 2016, 02:46:30 PM »

Yes but not easily, you can buy stepper pulsers or make one with a few components but the fact it jumps i think means it likely will work once the front end is sorted.

LPT port?

Best thing i can suggest is to upload your XML file and a far more knowledgeable person will likely dive in

Make sure it's the XML file for the profile you are running

1119

General Mach Discussion / Re: Stepper issues

« on: September 23, 2016, 02:23:30 PM »

The jump is probably correct - you are sending a single pulse or just flipping the pin on or off - to move a stepper you need to send a series of on/off pulses at a minimum, the speed of which will determine the speed of the motor.

The spindle will work because that only needs a single on/off output.

Sounds like the port is talking to the machine but Mach is not seeing the port.

Check the devices page of windows and get the address for the parallel port, then check that the correct port is set in Mach setup. Not all pc's use the same address.

1120

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach3 Speed Setting Opposite

« on: September 23, 2016, 06:14:35 AM »

Nice