Messages

1

General Mach Discussion / Re: MDI stops working - cannot enter input

« on: February 20, 2018, 11:47:32 PM »

I have never had Mach just run off in 1 direction but the shift key problem is bad enough and has broken many tools for me

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General Mach Discussion / Re: "Ref all home" sets wrong coordinates (XHC MKX-IV control card)

« on: February 20, 2018, 05:05:17 PM »

no, do not connect 2 steppers to the same drive, it will not work out well.

3

General Mach Discussion / Re: MDI stops working - cannot enter input

« on: February 19, 2018, 01:00:16 PM »

I have the same problem with MACH3 but have been able to see it is correlated with another issue in mach. I'm not sure if it will be the same for you, but here is my experience/solution

Do you notice that sometimes when jogging with shift held down (for fast jog) the shift key acts as if it is stuck down even when you are not holding it down? ie  you do a fast jog, then try to do a slow jog, but the machine still jogs fast? if  so maybe you have similar issue to me...

if you hit tab to look at the mpg you see a little green square usually go on or off with the shift key pressed/not but sometimes when shift key is not pressed this square is still green and the machine will still fast jog.

When I have mach3 in a state where you I am not pushing shift, but it thinks I am, the MDI will act exactly like you described for me, you can type but not "enter".

so to solve this just tap shift a few times and it will correct itself as to whether or not shift is held down. You can verify by looking at the mpg that pops up when you hit tab that it is cleared, but very reliably 2 taps seems to solve the problem for me at least.

so if you can t hit "enter" to get it to accept the mdi input, just tap shift twice then hit enter again.

i think this may be your issue to since you specified jogging, then after jogging mdi does not work.

4

General Mach Discussion / Re: "Ref all home" sets wrong coordinates (XHC MKX-IV control card)

« on: February 17, 2018, 03:36:08 PM »

I am not sure if i had the mk4 of this card but the auto tool zero definitely did not work correctly on the version i had. it had all sorts of strangeness and it does not have variable 2002 (needed for g31) working correctly. even in firmware the update notes they suggest to use getoemdro(802) instead of variable 2002, which to me seems like they know it is an issue.  i contacted xhc twice and never heard back so i cannot recommend this card.d

i found also as you said it disconnects very often. this can be solved by using a very short usb cable it seems but that may not be practical depending on your setup.

for chinese usb contoller cards i had better success with the "leafboy77" card which is around 150 usd i think and the "steps" card which is much cheaper but has much much  less IO ~40-50 USD.

i also tried pokeys and it is reliable but i found you need to buy too many breakout boards to connect everything so i could not fit it in my control box in the end, but it has tons more features and seems to work well and is not that expensive. whether any of these work for your machine may require more research but i just wanted to chime in and say the xhc card is not that good from my experience.


s

5

General Mach Discussion / Re: ARFcnc 6040 Mach 3 USB configuration help

« on: February 16, 2018, 06:35:43 PM »

have a good weekend!

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General Mach Discussion / Re: ARFcnc 6040 Mach 3 USB configuration help

« on: February 16, 2018, 04:49:44 PM »

yes so it seems then the issue is possibly that your steppers do not have power. can you locate the power supply and measure off of it if anything is coming out? you could also measure this with a voltmertr at the stepper. i think it is the red and black wires on the green connector to the left in your photo (2 furthest pins to the right)

i also noticed the xhc card in your photo has the power indicator light off, iirc this light comes on to confirm teh external power supply is good. so if that photo was taken with everything on, it also indicates it does not get power.

7

General Mach Discussion / Re: ARFcnc 6040 Mach 3 USB configuration help

« on: February 16, 2018, 09:59:29 AM »

Hi fredeflint,
you used to have this board....did you ever get it to work properly? 'Use to have' sounds like past tense, do you not have it any more?

Craig

yes the issue with this card for me is that g31 seems not to be implemented properly and does not work reliably. the card was able to move the steppers though without issue. the card mostly worked, but since g31 is something i use a lot, i swapped it out.

back to the actually Problem,
sounds like a wiring Problem.

do you probably have a sketch ?

yes another thing i thought of is that if the power supply for the steppers is 220/110v switchable, make sure it is set to 110v if you are in north america etc.

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General Mach Discussion / Re: ARFcnc 6040 Mach 3 USB configuration help

« on: February 16, 2018, 03:06:10 AM »

fair,  i used to have this card though, i could be wrong but i remember not having to config the pins. it could be a problem though if you set them all to the same pin, who knows.

9

General Mach Discussion / Re: ARFcnc 6040 Mach 3 USB configuration help

« on: February 16, 2018, 02:56:47 AM »

i dont think it matters with this card what the pin settings are for each axis bc they have dedicated pins on the card. see page 3

http://www.nvcnc.net/MK4/Parameter%20Settings%20for%20MKX%20.pdf

worth trying though if nothing else is working

10

General Mach Discussion / Re: ARFcnc 6040 Mach 3 USB configuration help

« on: February 15, 2018, 06:39:23 PM »

Well you should be able to measure around 5v and 0V on the DIR pins depending on which way the axis is moving. So X axis DIR pin will be high in one direction and low in the other.

THe pulse pins i imagine will be 0 or 5V when not moving then on a multi meter, it will effectively average the pulse levels, so it might be ~ 2.5V when moving. Or it might dance around when moving, it could depend on the meter exactly, but the point is you should see a difference in measurement between stopped and moving.

If that is a go then next step i would measure the power supply to the stepper drivers them selves. Probably it is 24 V DC on this machine, but look for the power supply it will say on it i would bet.