Messages

221

General Mach Discussion / Re: Need more IO with Mach? How about 91 with Modbus.

« on: February 15, 2007, 07:05:27 PM »

You can buy them in the states

http://www.comfiletech.com/

They are located in California i think

222

General Mach Discussion / Re: Need more IO with Mach? How about 91 with Modbus.

« on: February 14, 2007, 03:07:24 PM »

Oh yea, I forgot to say that...

I had trouble with my geckos, and I suck at electronics so I couldnt even build a buffer. maybe my transistor was bad. I could try again.
But I used a chinese stepper driver with COMMON GROUND, and it work flawless the first time.

Over at the gecko forum they said that the CUBLOC module was having trouble sinking the 16mA the geckos need to operate. But apparently the CUBLOC can sink 40mA per I/O.

so who knows.
The problem I had is that one of my 4 geckos worked, fine, two didnt work at all, and the other one did move the stepper but with missed steps along the way even at 180Hz.

Anyways... your product is a Good one, I dont know how long has the development of these modules been through, but I remember how master 5 and mach 2 started, it has come a VERY VERY long way since then, and all because of the support its coders are giving, and the feedback the users are giving them.

Keep up the Good Work!
Fernando

223

General Mach Discussion / Re: Need more IO with Mach? How about 91 with Modbus.

« on: February 14, 2007, 02:43:40 PM »

Well,
I hooked the CUSB I ordered to a machine I am building, not CNC related. I was intending to use the CUSB as a stand alone controller, which seemed like a good idea because it can do all the things my machine needs, so no mach3 or modbus needed for this one.
Programming was a breeze, I had the thing do what I wanted before I even got it, and I only learned BASIC programing in junior high, a years worth.
It is a simple program, it operates an indexing table with 5 stations, and the program controls the indexing, each of the actuators on each station, and keeps track of which station has a piece in case one failed to feed to the table.

Only problem I got, is that the command that is used to move steppers (STEPPULSE), which you can add as an argument the frequency of pulses and the number of steps to be outputted, does not have a ramping acceleration, so every time the stepper starts and stops there is a random number of steps lost in the process. I have my stepper motor correctly sized and the load to motor inertia ratio is kept well under 10.

It seems that the STEPPULSE command is fairly new, and that software engineers do not alwas knows what the application engineers need for proper application. So they do not know that ramping is Needed for accurate possitioning.

So I guess I will be using Mach3 to do the movement while the guys at Comfile Tech implement ramping.
I just dont know If i should interphase the cubloc and mach3 through modbus (I dont have a clue on even how to start doing that), or just send mach an input, have mach do the movent, and when finished send an output to the CUSB to do the rest.

So my advise to people considering this to do a toolchanger where the CUBLOC does the stepper movement, is wait till ramping is implemented, or if you can live with slow stepping rates, (about 180Hz) to do the stepping, then you can use it.

Over all, its a good product, good quality, easy to use, well documented, and lots of modularity.

Regards
Fernando

224

Works in progress / Re: New screen for Ascension 1000 users

« on: February 08, 2007, 08:00:19 PM »

Im guessing that is only for your users?

Or are we gonna get lucky?

Regards
Fernando

225

General Mach Discussion / Re: Need more IO with Mach? How about 91 with Modbus.

« on: February 01, 2007, 06:20:25 PM »

Hey Max,
I just got my 2 CUSBs, ill give them a go once i get a sensor I need.

I got one question for you.
I will be using a 201 Gecko drive to move a stepper (www.geckodrive.com) this drive has a 5v common, and i think the inputs for step and direction are pulsed to ground.
I talked to Mariss from gecko, and he told me that I could connect the step input terminal to ground, and then pulse the 5v common, but this way I loose the ability to use the direction input. Since I am going to use the PWM outputs from your cubloc, how should I connect the PWM outputs to the drive in order to have the 5v common and the pulsing ground to the step and direction outputs?

Hope I made sense.
Regards
Fernando

226

VB and the development of wizards / MOVED: como parar y subir la fresa?

« on: February 01, 2007, 12:09:01 PM »

This topic has been moved to Spanish.
Este topico se ha movido a Español.

http://www.machsupport.com/forum/index.php?topic=2353.0

227

Spanish / Re: como parar y subir la fresa?

« on: February 01, 2007, 12:07:57 PM »

http://www.machsupport.com/forum/index.php?board=51.0

Spanish forum

228

General Mach Discussion / Re: Need more IO with Mach? How about 91 with Modbus.

« on: January 30, 2007, 10:24:14 PM »

Hey Max,
I have been using Mach 3 for about 3 or 4 years now. I ordered a couple of CUSBs last week for another project that needs steppers.
Im the one that asked about usinf more than one stepper with a 280, just not at the same time, on your forum.

Please let me know If you need any help regarding mach3, although Ive never used modbus before 

Hope to get the cubloc modules this week so I can test the machine Im working on.

Regards
Fernando

229

Feature Requests / Re: Parametric Programming

« on: January 21, 2007, 03:23:43 PM »

in order to be able to have a toopath window, and be able to single step, you will need to add a button to post the code directyl on the mach3 window, look at other wizards that have the post code button to learn how to do that. I dont know for sure how to do that, but looking at ready made wizards will help you for sure.
Regards
Fernando

230

Feature Requests / Re: Parametric Programming

« on: January 17, 2007, 12:28:54 PM »

Not a problem, thats what we are here for.

Just glad I can give smething back to our comunity

Fernando