Messages

921

General Mach Discussion / Re: frustrated new guy

« on: January 31, 2008, 10:20:19 AM »

Ralph - dont get you ******** in a twist.

You are doing the big bang approach and something is wrong, You will not find the answer.

Disconnect any connections to your lathe/mill or the stepper motor drivers. The only thing you should have connected to your computer is the LPT1 cable and a breakout board. You will need to use your breakout board, because 3.3v out from your computer is not sufficient to drive the stepper drivers directly.

I suggest you use Mach 3 turn for these tests - it makes no difference.

Open Mach3 turn at the Manual page
Go to Config/Ports and Pins. On the Port setup and Axis selction page, ensure that Port 1 is enabled. On the Motor outputs page DISABLE all the outputs. On the spindle set up page, un-tick the Disable spindle relays. Enter Output 1 at Clockwise and output 2 at CCW.
Goto Output signals page and under OUTPUT#1, enter Port 1, Pin 1.

Check your breakout board and see what voltage is on Pin 1.
It should be 0volts (or very near) - If it is 5 volts or near have a look at Output Signals again and see if Output#1 is ticked as active low. If it is, untick it.
With your mouse, on the Manual Page of Turn, click the spindle icon.
The signal on pin 1 should now change to 5volts (or very near). Click spindle again, and it should return to 0v.

You can check all your pins in this manner and see exactly what is happening by altering the pin setting of Output Signals/Output #1.
The pin numbers you can use are on the page in front of you.

Once you are satisfied that all your pins are working correctly,
Go to Ports and Pins and enable the x axis, and enter port 1, pin2 and port 1 pin 3 on the step and dir positions (do not forget the ports)
Connect up your pin2 to the step input on your stepper driver card, pin 3 to your dir input and do not forget the signal ground connection, which can be any of pins 18 to 25. Connect a stepper motor to your driver board (with the appropriate power suppy) and see if you can control the motor using the jogging facility on the Manual page.

The rest is just more of the same. I used Mach3 Turn because it has a manual spindle on'off. The set up of Turn and Mill are identical.
If you have had any luck so far, you can change to Mill and try and set that up the same way.

Jim.

922

General Mach Discussion / Re: ATC using stepper motor on A axis

« on: January 31, 2008, 09:39:08 AM »

Yes - no problem - (you don't need a guarantee it will work, do you )

I will open my big mouth.

Seriously - I think it is a quite simple program - I don't know how many tool positions there are, but what I had in mind was one that responded to the tool number, and rotated in the quickest direction to get there. I think the only caveat on that would be that the tools would have to be 1 to 6 or whatever - and these would have to be left blank in the tool table.

923

General Mach Discussion / Re: Turn?

« on: January 31, 2008, 09:32:06 AM »

Daft as it seems, Graham - I never though of that. You always centre drill with the tailstock - don't you. I had been thinking of mounting my turret at the back of my cross-slide (wide bed), though.

The only thing I can see is I will have to make sure I am accurate every time I start - or the drill will not line up on the centre line of the lathe. I didn't realise you could get holders to fit in the quick change holder, to take drills etc.

Thanks - something else to look into.

924

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach3 and a Laser.

« on: January 31, 2008, 09:21:32 AM »

Having just looked at the laser spec - it is a lot bigger than I thought, BUT daft as it seems, will it mount in place of the milling head on your router. It might look a bit hideous, but may be the simplest way to do it, if you have 6ft clearance. You only have wires and pipes to connect to it.If the laser is not mounted on the head, i cannot see how you can keep the beam on the work ( even by mirrors) as the head moves round the table

925

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach3 and a Laser.

« on: January 31, 2008, 09:06:50 AM »

You've shifted the question again - but I take it that you arn't going to use the spindle of your machine - i.e. it won't be turning. You will mount the laser in there.

In that case it would seem to me that you have control of focus - in that the Z axis can go up and down. The x and y axis take care of moving the laser about your pattern.

Mach 3 puts out a pwn signal - this is tied to the spindle speed. If you disconnect the spindle drivers, you could use the pwm signal output to directly driver the laser (if it will do so) or buy a Digispeed which will convert the pwm signal into a varying voltage signal the limits of which you can set. You could then use the S command in G Code to drive your laser.

926

General Mach Discussion / Re: Turn?

« on: January 31, 2008, 08:52:40 AM »

Since you are adding DRO's etc for a third axis, why bother using Turn - you might as well just use another set up on MIll - it doesn't know it is running a lathe. All the DROs you want are on the page, and all the connections internal or otherwise are already made.

When you say you are motorising the tailstock, I take it you mean the feed in and out, not rotating the tailstock to drive the drill.
If you used the spare "y" axis and set up the steps per unit correctly, this can be directly controlled from GCode to feed in and out, and it would respond to all the standard GCode control.

I am planning a similar one with a turret so that I can centre drill, then drill and then counter sink work in the lathe - at the moment I have to change tools in the tailstock all the time. I shall run the turret on the a axis as a rotary axis , again with the steps per unit set so the one unit brings round a new tool.

Jim

927

General Mach Discussion / Re: ATC using stepper motor on A axis

« on: January 30, 2008, 01:14:51 PM »

I think the easiest way to drive the thing woud be to  alter the steps per unit configuration, so that for a unit of "one" the stepper motor moved enough to move your turret one position. You could then move it backwards or forwards as though it were a rotary axis using G Code.

Once you have got to this, a simple Vis Basic program (which writes GCode anyway) would suffice, picking up your tool number from the DRO and moving the turret to a suitable position.

Jim

928

General Mach Discussion / Re: What does the "To Go" button do?

« on: January 27, 2008, 11:38:44 AM »

Oh Dear !!!   I don't know what the personal message is, but, yes, you have a lot to learn. Since I am on the other side of the "pond" I don't think I am in the best position to help you.

As a matter of interest, what made you buy a machine, what is it, and what are you intending to use it for ??

929

General Mach Discussion / Re: Capturing Encoder DRO's?

« on: January 27, 2008, 11:31:25 AM »

Dennis - I am not sure - but Vis Basic might meet your needs - although I do not know how. I assume Vis Basic can open a file to save data, and as all the usual Basic functions, will be able to append information.

The information you require is readily available - e.g. xpos = GetDro(0) - which puts the information in xpos. DRO(1) is y, DRO(2) is z, I assume 3,4,5 are a,b,c.

All you need is the syntax to open a file, record the info and close the file.  Without fiddling about, I don't know how - but I'm sure someone else on the forum will.

930

General Mach Discussion / Re: 2nd parallel port pin (2-9) as inputs

« on: January 27, 2008, 11:19:07 AM »

I do not know what "port" you have bought. Can it be used with pins 2 - 9 as inputs.

If it is just a "printer" port, pins 2 - 0 are outputs only, 10 - 13 and 15 are inputs, and 1,14,16 and 17 are outputs. 18 to 25 are signal gnd (0v).

What you need is a general purpose port, where all the pins can function as inputs or outputs.