Messages

621

General Mach Discussion / Re: Help needed Connecting NPN Proximity sensors to BB`s

« on: May 09, 2008, 04:23:21 AM »

How many wires have these sensors got and what is their specification - is there a 12v and 0v connection with another wire as the output.
What are these sensors so I can look them up.

Most sensors of this sort - optical, proximity etc - work on a negative "ON" - i.e. when they "sense" their resistance goes low.
The pins on your breakout board should be  normally high +5v - to reflect the fact that the input pins on LPT1 are normally high - they have an internal pull up resistor. Is the input pin you are connecting to normally at 5 volts

The input to Mach 3 is at 5volts - I cannot understand why you are using 12 volt sensors - unless all the proximity detectors are 12 volt devices.

622

General Mach Discussion / Re: More noob questions i'm afraid

« on: May 09, 2008, 04:06:06 AM »

I'll leave Hood to sort you out on the jogging - but just a quick one or two things to try on your Z and A axis.

Assuming you have the correct pin/wire numbers to your drivers for step and dir -
and I am assuming you are using something like 2,3  - 4,5 - 6,7 - 8,9
1. Have you enabled the axis - sounds daft - but I have done it  - Config/Ports and Pins/Motor Outputs - first column.
2. Is the Port number correctly set - Config/Ports and Pins/Motor Outputs - columns 6 and 7
3. Most driver cards have an enable pin - which requires a 0v connection - is this connected. (Dont try and connect this via the computer - to get going just connect it to ground (check your manual - it might be +5v - but it should be ground)

623

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach3 Turn... Pro?

« on: May 09, 2008, 03:19:24 AM »

I was looking at doing that when (I think it was Dave Waterworth) asked why I want to do that.

If you put a drill holder on your cross-slide (mine is quite a long one), you can drill using the power feed on the cross slide, which saves you the problem of motorising the tailstock. I am putting a second "homing" switch, which brings the drill across to the centre-line.

The easiest way was to mount the "drill" holding block on the cross slide (with a couple of holes to locate it if you need to take it off) and then drill through with, perhaps a 20 mm drill (with the drill in the chuck so it is centred). I was then going to make a selection of drill holders to fit in it, secured by grub screws.

You can have a third axis controller - I have on my lathe - which is actualy a lathe with a milling attachment. Yes - I use "mill" when milling and "turn" when turning, but all the controls are there - they are just not shown on the "turn" screens.

You could soon add the controls for a headstock drill to "turn"

My requirements are modest - so the 500 line Gcode limit does not affect me (yet) - and I haven't found anything else that does.
I didn't know about threading - I have tried in a halfhearted way - on some brass rod - and since I have the spindle controlled, the machine seemed to go through the motions and produce a thread type pattern on the rod, but only seemed to make one pass, with no depth of cut. I didn't have time to pursue it so "put it down for another day"

If you need any help with the screen(s) give me a shout. - I might still motorise my headstock.

624

General Mach Discussion / Re: error in drill wizard?

« on: May 09, 2008, 02:55:34 AM »

You are probably right - I do not know what the (4) signifies. It is NOT four numbers after the decimal point, becasue that only goes to two numbers before rounding up or down.

Perhaps Brian can have a look and let us know.

625

General Mach Discussion / Re: Running macro and testing them

« on: May 08, 2008, 05:16:11 AM »

The machine will TOTALLY skip M6 until you configure it  - see Config/General Config - top left hand corner.
Ignore Tool change should be ticked. If you tick "Stop spindle - Wait for cycle start" the machine will do that.
 
The "Auto Tool Change" reads the M6 script
The M6 macro is empty - becasue for an M6 everybody wants to do something different.

I have a quick change tool holder - so my machine moves to a safe location where I can change the tool, I change it, and the machine moves back - so you will have to write your own script for it. Have alook at the tutorials under "Scripting"

626

General Mach Discussion / Re: disabled steppers after a period of inactivity??

« on: May 08, 2008, 05:07:23 AM »

Not that I am aware of. You can use one of the outputs as an enable line, but I do not know of a facility to disable them merely after a period on inactivity. My steppers are connected all the time - I do not even have enables on them - and, if the drivers are correctly adjusted, they do not get warm. The important thing is find out the spec of your motors and then set the drivers to that current output.

This sort of facility is normally done by your driver cards, which normally reduce the current to your motors once stopped - for example on the Gecko cards and quite a few others. I don't know what drivers your are using, but have a look at the spec. This should tell you.

Mach does appear a little daunting at first - but that is becasue it is a comprehensive program for lathes, mill, lasers, torches, etc etc. The most important thing is to workout what you want from it - and ignore the rest til you are ready.

627

General Mach Discussion / Re: error in drill wizard?

« on: May 08, 2008, 04:21:18 AM »

The only time I can get that error is when entering depths 0f 0.004 or less. I have tried with the machine in inches and working in mm, mm - mm, mm - inches and inches - inches. It is all the same.

The formatting must ignore  4 thous or less. Over 4 thou to 8 thou the formatting interprets this as 0.01. I cannot get the DRO to accept 0.009 - and from 0.01 onward it seems OK.

Reading the formatting instructions, this seems to indicate that Z has two numbers to the right of the decimal place. If more numbers are entered, then the formatting rounds up (or down) to two decimal places - which seems to be in line with my results above

You do not need to put a negative number in the hole depth - the formatting changes the number to a negative number anyway. Just enter the depth you want. If you are in inches - then 1.5, 2.75 etc - to 2 decimal places. If you are metric then 5mm is 5.0 etc. - also to 2 decimal places - but I don't think metric drills go to that (not the ones I use anyway)

Maybe the DRO could be changed to accept only two figures after the decimal place.

628

General Mach Discussion / Re: Best way to run analog drives?

« on: May 07, 2008, 12:37:42 PM »

I am trying to make sense of your question.

Are you asking how to control a stepper motor, a spindle motor or what.

I would assume all Galils products work well.

If you are wanting a way to convert the PWM signal given out by Mach 3 to a 0 - 10 volt analogue signal, to control a driver for your spindle than you need a Digispeed (Australian) - these work very well.

629

General Mach Discussion / Re: LPT2 input pin problem

« on: May 07, 2008, 12:28:11 PM »

Are you saying that all the rest of the pins will act as input??

I assume your board can be configured as inputs or outputs, so the only thing to do is test it - i.e. using Configue/Ports and pins to allocate each pin in turn to a switch input (one of your limits or your spindle counter) and manually test that input on the Diagnostic page - a bit of a bind perhaps but that is the only way.

If you are saying that these are the only pins you have tried, and they don't work, then some older (or cheaper) boards, just emulated the standard LPT1 inputs - and pins 2 - 9 could not be changed. This does not explain pin 10 however, which is shown on my diagrams as an input on pin 6 on address &H279 - LPT2

630

General Mach Discussion / Re: error in drill wizard?

« on: May 07, 2008, 11:40:33 AM »

I ahev just tried running this with 6 and 5 holes - and it worked.

I admit that this is on my office machine - not the workshop one, but no problems here.

I enclose the two files from my add-on folder for this. Try them in place of the ones you have.
The third file is the bit maps, which shouldn't affect the running of it.

In both cases knock the XML extension off before you use them.