Messages

161

General Mach Discussion / Re: Load Mach3 to Laptop

« on: November 22, 2006, 05:22:01 AM »

OOhf , You are so on the edge. 

Windows 2000 will take up most of that ram, it is not as bad as xp but still. I would also imagine that your computer is using shared memory for the video also. What this means is your os and video are taking all of the available on board memory just to sit there. When you load programs the computer has to use virtual memory for everything else. Virtual memory is temporary memory that is written to the disk drive. Laptop disk drives are slow at best and OLD laptop drives are even slower.

Is this a fresh clean install of windows 2k? That would be the first place to start. Second would be to try mach2 . Mach 3 is pretty much out of the question, it just needs more resources than that hardware can supply.

Software progresses with hardware. It is just a fact of life. Unfortunately that machine is just not up to snuff. I know it sucks, i have a handful of pc's sitting around that i would like to put to work, they just don't have enough power to do anything with.  Even if you do get thing running on that laptop it won't be a pleasurable experience. The other problem is lots of laptops just plain don't get along with mach, they have lots of custom and funky hardware to make things small , performance is second.

Good luck

Chad

I just did a search for a gateway solo laptop and found a archive from Jul 14 '97 - That machine probably had win 98 on it 9 years ago , you are lucky 2k will even boot. 

162

Tangent Corner / Re: "Click and Buy" Bunch of scabs

« on: November 22, 2006, 01:24:21 AM »

good, I hate crappy business practices. They must not want any repeat business. If they just cancelled it and said no problem, there would be a chance that you might sometime in the future do business again. I guess they know they are flighty and are just milking it for all they can , when they can.


Chad

163

General Mach Discussion / Re: New CV features

« on: November 21, 2006, 03:34:12 PM »

Brian i agree that we could use a lesson in cv. I have started doing 3D contours in earnest and i have been struggling with the cv settings. I have found a "sweet spot" of between 180 and 220 ipm. Anything above or below and i get the hurky jerkys. I have to turn off the cv federate in the settings page or else i get jearkys but then corners are rounded. I realize that this has a lot to do with my accel - 20 but i have a 1400lb gantry and just cant whip the machine any faster than that.  Any suggestions?

Chad
 

164

General Mach Discussion / Re: slow stepping on power up

« on: November 20, 2006, 09:24:07 PM »

If you found it then disregaurd the last post. Glad to hear you got it working.

Chad

165

General Mach Discussion / Re: slow stepping on power up

« on: November 20, 2006, 06:18:32 PM »

Just for fun do a quick test for me. Reboot don't load mach right click on your desktop > properties > settings tab > advanced > troubleshoot > and move the slider back two notches. Apply and reboot then load mach and see if it is still doing the same thing.
I ran into this problem with another piece of software lately and this fixed things for me.

I make no guarantees but it is worth a shot.

Chad

 

166

General Mach Discussion / Re: Feed Rates

« on: November 20, 2006, 06:03:14 PM »

In your g-code there is a "F" command that sets the g1 speed - F400 would be 400 units per min, in your case mm.

A G0 is a rapid movement. This will take place at the maximum speed that you have set in the motor tuning.

So if you want to be cutting at 400mm per min then in your gcode be sure to add a line that has a F400.
When you are cutting the reason it jumps to 1000 is that is probably is doing a G0 or a rapid move then it gets back to a g1 at the default of 6.

Chad

PS. If you are just jogging around don't forget that you can hold shift down to jog at full speed. What most of us do is set the jog slow for fine tuning positions and when when we need to move fast we just hold the shift key then jog..

167

General Mach Discussion / Re: Load Mach3 to Laptop

« on: November 20, 2006, 05:57:26 PM »

I also noticed that you are running a laptop with a 500 mhz processor. This is less than half the recommended speed. How much ram do you have?

Chad

168

General Mach Discussion / Re: PID motor tuning

« on: November 17, 2006, 03:20:42 PM »

There is really no compelling reason to try to do it in mach. PID is better suited to the servo drivers and let mach just do what it is designed to do and output pulses.

Chad

169

General Mach Discussion / Re: New CV features

« on: November 17, 2006, 03:16:25 PM »

I second that, I have it working pretty well by trial and error but getting the de-facto scoop would help.

Chad

170

General Mach Discussion / Re: We need Linux port

« on: November 15, 2006, 03:47:01 PM »

Porting Mach to Linux is never gonna happen. I like Linux too but Sometimes i just want things to work and while windows assuredly has it's problems for the most part things work. I spent  weeks trying to get mythtv running on one of my boxen and could never get it working correctly. I have up and installed a free windows version and it has been rock solid. If and when Linux gets to the point that i don't have to mess with kernel stuff to get things to work i will be a happy camper, but for now it isn't there yet.

And btw there is a very good free cnc controller for Linux

http://www.linuxcnc.org/

But again you have to mess with the system to get things working.

Chad