Messages

1

General Mach Discussion / Re: Manual control via keypad is missing - help

« on: February 06, 2016, 05:07:36 AM »

Hi Twekie, thanks for the suggestion, but alas, that's turned on.  A while back I had noticed that the Z+ direction was not working, but I almost never use that function and didn't want to interrupt our Christmas gift production in order to find a minor glitch. Now that none work, it's time to find the cause.

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General Mach Discussion / Manual control via keypad is missing - help

« on: February 06, 2016, 04:13:27 AM »

That's the real question guys, last month I could move the gantry all over and now after a few weeks off, in order to make manual traverse in any axis I'm forced to do it with the tab button manual control buttons - the keyboard direction buttons do nothing. I'm pretty certain that I hadn't made any changes, but I willing to try anything.

Thanks!

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Mach4 General Discussion / Is anybody running Mach 4 on a GRBL machine??

« on: October 18, 2015, 03:11:19 PM »

I've been running Mach 3 on a older router and would like to use Mach 4 on another CNC router I have that's controlled by a Ardrino Uno loaded with GRBL firmware. Short of ditching the Ardrino and replacing it with a smoothstepper or another USB board of some type, can Mach 4 address the GRBL board?

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General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach 3 on Windows 10

« on: August 11, 2015, 10:03:42 PM »

I just "upgraded" to 10 on several of my computers, but the computer that I eun my router on will no longer start Mach3. Trying to start it gives a memory error and it restarts the computer. Uggg! Time to revert it back to win7.

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Third party software and hardware support forums. / Re: standalone Mach3 controller

« on: May 20, 2015, 01:01:54 AM »

I just "upgraded" my CNC's with a "newer" IBM recon from Newegg. It's a 3.4Mhz machine with 4gig ram, and most surprising it had a PP! I replaced the 160gig hard drive with a 1tb WD drive I had on hand. The cost of the PC was $99 w/free shipping and the drive was one I had picked up during their black Friday sale, and I think it was just $59. These reconditioned PC's they sell have been in use by industry or by government. As such, they've had a lot of "power on" time, so while they are used, they have been kept serviced. I always have a spare power supply on hand (and most everything else needed to build a couple computers for some reason) since I expect that the PS is the component most likely to fail first. As a bonus it comes with win7 home installed with a fresh serial number attached from the reconditioner. With win7 going for about the same $99 the system cost me, I feel it's a bargain.

As for MS and their proclivity to abandon OS that work nicely - I'm glad to have a PC that will meet my CNC needs for several years, that is equipped with a OS that supports the equipment and software I want to run on it. The fact that it cost less than a Chinese VFD, is a real bonus.

6

FAQs / Can't get steppers to move - yeah, I'm new to Mach 3.......

« on: February 27, 2015, 12:06:18 AM »

Hello, I recently completed a shapeoko build and have spent a few days trying to get Mach 3 to move the steppers.

So far I have - checked my wiring, three times. I've reloaded the Mach 3 software twice and used the configuration steps outlined in the startup manual and watched the artsoft video's posted on youtube reproducing each step faithfully. The steppers will lock up but that is all they do and even that seems to happen without reason or rhyme. At no time have I been able to get the gantry to move under power.

Also, I'm a licensed owner of Mach 3, I'm convinced it's the best out there.

The computer is a 7 year old Dell I picked up and refurbed because it has the hard to find parallel port. It's loaded with Win 7 32 bit and nothing else at this point New 1 terabyte drive, 4 gig ram and a new CD drive. The port checks out as excellent, so I'm pretty certain the problem is not with the computer.

The Shapeoko is equiped with 4 425 in oz stepper motors I had on hand from another project. These are driven by 4 DQ542MA stepper drivers hooked to a breakout board I picked up on Ebay http://www.ebay.com/itm/400860909457?_trksid=p2059210.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

If there's any more info you need to help me figure this out, feel free to ask, I'm running out of hair to pull out.