Messages

41

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 / Darwin setup

« on: April 18, 2015, 08:25:02 AM »

ok port 1 pin 10 negated - e-stop

motor0 port 1 pin 17 negated - motor0 dir.
       port 1 pin 16 negated - motor0 step.

motor1 port 1 pin 5 negated - motor1 dir
       port 1 pin 4 negated - motor1 step

motor2 port 1 pin 7 negated - motor2 dir
       port 1 pin 6 negated - motor2 step

from what I can tell these settings should work and when you setup Mach4 never check anything as negated that's all done in the Darwin setup only. and you might have to map the enable in Mach4 to something.... maybe on the same port/pin as the e-stop not sure about that. if that's how ya had the ports/pins.... I'm at a loss as to what to try

Dave

42

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 / Darwin setup

« on: April 17, 2015, 03:03:40 PM »

yeah but he said he got motors to turn when he put the charge pump on some pins.... I don't really know I just assumed that all stepper drivers had an enable/disable pin for a safety feature but I haven't seen that many... BAR if you still have your setup for Mach3 might be worth a shot to look at all the outputs and see if there is any for the pins you tested and got a motor to run.

Dave

43

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 / Darwin setup

« on: April 17, 2015, 01:13:01 PM »

I'm not saying it's a hardware problem... I'm saying that maybe in Mach3 there is a port/pin setting to enable the stepper drivers  and maybe even one for each driver. it would be an output and would work as a e-stop kinda for the axises. without the use of that enable pin on the stepper drivers.... say if you hardwired them to be on all the time. then even in e-stop your motors could possibly take off on you.... it's a safety thing.

44

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 / Darwin setup

« on: April 17, 2015, 08:55:05 AM »

here's a thought..... most stepper drivers have an enable pin on them.... when I built my machine I connected my chargepump to that pin on each stepper driver. so if the computer locks up or is not getting a good pulse it will disable the stepper drivers and theres no motion. if you don't have a chargepump you still have to enable the stepper drivers. theres so many different kinds of boards out there it's tough to say.

45

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 / Darwin setup

« on: April 14, 2015, 08:54:50 PM »

Here I thought ya got it running..... in my post I made a mistake.... and meant to say go into the dive manager and in the printer port and it will tell the port address... sorry about that... but I guess if Mach3 works and your using the same port address then Darwin should work too. you might need to have the enable on in the outputs. at least I think thats in the outputs.

Dave

46

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 / Darwin setup

« on: April 13, 2015, 10:50:55 PM »

when you install Darwin do you run the test engine in the Darwin folder or do you use the setup.exe..... I checked this last night and you can run the Darwin test engine and move the motors without even having Mach4 open. did you bump up the jog speed and the accel in the Darwin setup... also you might try checking in the windows devise manager and make sure Darwin is installed and that it's on the same port address.

Dave

47

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 / Darwin setup

« on: April 13, 2015, 01:04:10 AM »

If you uninstall Darwin to try reinstalling it ....you have to go into the windows device manager and uninstall it.... I wouldn't even worry about mapping the signals to Mach4 until you can jog the motors with the jog ball in the Darwin config. I would check through the ports and pins and make sure the negate check box is set right maybe try it both ways and just work on getting one axis going at a time. you said the e-stop works so I would assume your port address is right.

48

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 / Darwin setup

« on: April 11, 2015, 02:43:45 PM »

Art had said the simulator plugin sometimes causes problems with Darwin .....you could try removing that

49

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 / Darwin setup

« on: April 10, 2015, 01:22:01 AM »

From the Darwin setup the reset should be green.... on the motors page I would start with the x axis..... set your ports and pins.... bump up the jog speed slider and from the jogball you should be able to move the motor.... and make sure your set to the right port on the first page.... for the parallel port you are using. you should be able to jog from the Darwin setup. if you have a charge pump to enable your drivers you might have to have that set up too.

Dave

50

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 / Darwin setup

« on: April 08, 2015, 09:54:28 PM »

Have you watched Arts video on setting up Darwin and read through this discussion thread on the forum "Mach4 Printer Port Discussions" lots of helpful information there.