Messages

11

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 cutting feed rate on a 450,000 line gcode?

« on: February 01, 2017, 12:08:31 PM »

here I am, ready to try it, but dont remember where I saw the option to run the tap without the toolpath showing. anyone able to remind me?

12

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 cutting feed rate on a 450,000 line gcode?

« on: January 31, 2017, 01:49:44 PM »

I'll try that if I get another order for a calendar.

13

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 cutting feed rate on a 450,000 line gcode?

« on: January 31, 2017, 11:09:34 AM »

They do meet the requirements. I'm using a dedicated laptop because the footprint of a full PC/mouse/keyboard would make my podium too large for the space I have available. I did check my system usage while cutting one of the failed attempts and memory usage never went past 25%, and CPU was at 10-20%. I will be upping it to 8gb from 4, but 4 was listed as more than enough. Although, now that youve got me thinking about it, I think the onboard graphics might not have enough memory allocated to it.

14

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 cutting feed rate on a 450,000 line gcode?

« on: January 30, 2017, 10:57:25 PM »

No, ESS (ethernet smooth stepper) with just the ESS driver. Although, the old PC that came with the machine (which I assume came with a pirated copy of mach3, hence the upgrade to mach4) was using the printer port. Moved it to storage and dont want to dig it out to find out what driver it had unless its relevant

15

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 cutting feed rate on a 450,000 line gcode?

« on: January 30, 2017, 09:54:28 PM »

I'm embarrassed to say that I don't know. It's not printed on it, and the machine came as an assembled unit from china. I'll see if I can post a picture of it

16

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 cutting feed rate on a 450,000 line gcode?

« on: January 30, 2017, 05:36:23 PM »

Looks like I didn't get it soon enough this time. It offset the X axis by almost 3/16'thof an inch.

17

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 cutting feed rate on a 450,000 line gcode?

« on: January 30, 2017, 04:38:43 PM »

It just did it again around the 115,000 line mark. I wasn't watching so missed the exact line. Pause and start fixed it again.

18

Mach4 General Discussion / Mach4 cutting feed rate on a 450,000 line gcode?

« on: January 30, 2017, 03:56:53 PM »

Cutting out a few aztec calendars with Mach4>ESS. As you'd expect the gcode is huge. the first time I ran it it cut 100% without any issues. the second time, at around 350,000 (60-65% of the way through) it stopped cutting at its set speed of 80ipm and started stuttering and moving the machine extremely jerkily, and mach4 was reading out that it was cutting out at 15-20 ipm, but still jogging at the normal jog speed of 120 when it lifted the spindle.
After pausing and restarting the program it continued on normally, but as the cut got closer to being complete I saw that the XY had been shifted by almost a quarter inch. thats fine, just started a fresh one without letting it finish (4 hour cut time)
Next run it started lagging and jittering again and reading the same low cut speed and normal jog speed at line 115,000 (approximately). I caught it almost right away this time, and when I paused it and resumed it, it ran through the rest of the code without fault. Everything stayed lined up this time as well.
I've been using this machine with Mach3 for over a year now without any issues like this. Just recently got the ESS and Mach4 to switch to a laptop from the old PC it came with.

My question is this:

Where should I start looking to find what is causing this? What information would I need to provide if anyone here has some insight?