Messages

111

General Mach Discussion / Re: Motors driving willy nilly

« on: May 13, 2007, 07:52:46 PM »

Now I have something new that it hasn't done before. Both the X and Y motors turn poorly when I hit an X jog arrow key.
Sound noisey?
I narrowed this down to the el cheapo silicon keyboard.
I used the jog screen and that didn't happen, but I still get the bidirectinal movement.
I think I just need to break it all out of this case and setup with new wires on a table or bench.
I am not really satisfied with the banana terminals for the voltages through the case. They function okay, but not ideal. They are exposed inside.
What are some of the other type of through panel connections that are used?

112

General Mach Discussion / Re: Motors driving willy nilly

« on: May 13, 2007, 07:37:12 PM »

I upgraded to the .069 version and all my leds on the diag page go out or they don't even come on. Even with both ports enabled. Port 1 state doesn't even light up. It still jogs the motors okay, so not sure what is up there. If I is a clue, I don't know what it means. 

113

General Mach Discussion / Re: Motors driving willy nilly

« on: May 13, 2007, 07:08:04 PM »

Ah. I think you mean the blue plugs? I haven't actually swapped those out between drives, but I have mounted each of the drives where the Z is on the far right and they all function well in that position. All three motors work great and as they should when plugged into anu drive in the Z location as well. This is telling me that it has got to be noise of some kind.
I have been focusing on the rear of the cabinet. I have 62 volts coming into the front of the cabinet and all of that up to the fuses are raw. That is to say unshielded. These terminals are also right in front of one of the two drives, so perhaps thats where it lays.

One thing I have noticed is on the Diag. page, when I first click on it just after I have started Mach, my input pins all light up. They slowly go out , but not all of them. This is with no inputs even connected. I did have an estop setup, but I disconnected that while I'm sorting this out.
I am wondering if this might be the charge pump? Also, I can't actually disable the Estop switch in the config. I just removed the pin and port numbers, but the green check mark stays on. I find that odd. Possible bug?
I tried to capture the diag page, but things go a little crazy when I try that.

Enhanced pulsing is enabled. I think I have tried both ways.


This is version R2.0.065

114

General Mach Discussion / Re: Motors driving willy nilly

« on: May 13, 2007, 05:31:20 PM »

Thanks Guys.
I have turned the pots on the gecko's to the limit in both directions with no real effect. I have set the debounce all the way up to 2000 and still get the same results. The computer I am using is running at 45000 freq. and is pretty stable.

I haven't switched out the drive wiring yet. I have considered it, but these are all just short new straight pieces of wire running from either the BOB or the fuses.
I was thinking my next step might be to pull everything out of this case and spread it out. Use some longer wires for everything and see if that doesn't help.
It just has to be something simple. Thanks again. I will follow up with my results.

115

General Mach Discussion / Re: Motors driving willy nilly

« on: May 13, 2007, 02:27:34 PM »

No joy on the grounding of the shield wires.
I used the brass bar at the rear to act as a grounding buss bar. I then used some of this shielding braid as grounding wire. Attached terminals to one end and gator clips to the other. All shields are grounded to the driver case, computer case and welding cart its all sitting on. I even shielded the ribbon cable that goes to the step/dir led's and also tried it with that disconnected.
I think it will require some more head scratching. 

116

General Mach Discussion / Re: Motors driving willy nilly

« on: May 13, 2007, 12:14:04 PM »

Now you see there! I hadn't even thought about that.
The shielding that was originally grounded through the cabeling is grounded. The rest really isn't. Perhaps intermittent at the back where I have the clamp on the three motor plug recepticles, but not actually screwed down for sure.
I will try that and thanks a bunch.

117

General Mach Discussion / Re: Motors driving willy nilly

« on: May 13, 2007, 10:39:39 AM »

I did remove the caps and there was no change.
I am officially out of things to try.
The only things I didn't shield are the 12 volts to the fans from the computer PS. I did shield those switch wires though.
I didn't shield the 120 v ac running to the BOB and the switch either, but I was getting the same type thing with just a standard BOB and using the 5vdc from the lab supply, so I am kinda ruling out interference from those.
They are also running in the very front of the case and not really crossing any of the drive and step/dir wiring.
Just really odd stuff here. For me anyway.

Perhaps its time to try a completely different case.

118

General Mach Discussion / Re: Motors driving willy nilly

« on: May 13, 2007, 09:27:20 AM »

Well, Guys, even after the shielding, I still have the problem.
Z runs perfect. The other two run pretty good, but will go both directions using the same arrow key.
Here is a photo of the shielding in place.
http://leestyron.com/cnc/cb4.jpg
My site is down for the past few minutes but should show up soon.

Now I am nearly at an end of the battle with this case and configuration. I have no clue what might be going on now.
I have swapped everything I could think of including computers, keyboards, drives, motors, cables, BOB's, 5 volt sources, switches, PPort cables etc.
I have swapped pin settings on the BOB and matched them up to Mach. All three motors have the same settings and then different settings from very slow to fast. No difference. I still get bidirectional movement from one arrow key. I get this same kind of movement regardless of which arrow key. Both on X and Y.

I have a question. The 470 uf caps. Gecko says to use these if the PS is more than a foot from the drives. They are right at a foot. Would it hurt anything to remove them and give it a whirl? I am thinking it would be okay. I am still just boxing shadows n this.
This is all before I even get the THC 300a turned on and the plasma going. This could really take some time. 
Thanks for any suggestions at this point.

119

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach License

« on: May 08, 2007, 02:02:00 PM »

I like to do a backup of the entire Mach 3 folder when I do a backup.
Not really needed, but it is easy. The license is just a file that comes in an email. You just copy it to your Mach 3 folder and the next time you boot up, it should find the license and release the strangle hold on the Gcode. You could then click on help/about Mach to see your copy is licensed to you.
I don't think it could be any easier and non intrusive to the program itself.
Sometimes you have to uninstall Mach 3 and the uninstall leaves the license in place. Then when you reinstall Mach 3 to the same folder it was in, Mach will automatically find the license.

120

General Mach Discussion / Re: Motors driving willy nilly

« on: May 07, 2007, 08:26:05 AM »

Thanks a bunch, Guys.
I did check all the blue connectors. They seem to be fine for continuity. If I turn these around, they don't lock in and the cover doesn't fit right. They don't plug in as far either.
I suspect that if swapping the connectors out has fixed someone's issue, they may have had a noise issue and the movement and different placement of the wires cleared up the issues with noise.

At any rate, just moving a bad drive to a good drives location and using the good drives wiring stopped the issue it was having. It purred just as the good one did.
I don't think it's that actual connections. All the wiring is nearly a short as possible and pretty much identical.
I think the noise issue has to be the trouble. If it were a ground loop, the the stable drive wouldn't work right either.
I wasn't even aware that the blue connectors came off before this though. Looking at them closely, they are a nice little bit of diseign and engineering as well. Double sliding dovetails. Very cool. 
Thanks Guys.