Recent Posts

1

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach3 Probing Anomolies

« Last post by JohnHaine on May 18, 2025, 05:35:40 AM »

If the "board" is a motion controller then that should be where probing is handled.  Probing requires motion to stop as quickly as possible once the probe triggers, and thye system can't afford the round trip time for the probe signal to make it through Mach 3 and into the motion controller to make it stop.  That's why we are asking what the specific board is.  How does the Mach 3 PC connect to it?

For example, I use the UC100 motion controller which has a USB interface to the PC, probing works just fine.  Previously I used Mach 3 on an old PC with parallel port, where the "motion controller" is an integral part of Mach 3 - that worked fine as well.  As I mentioned above, occasionally I've had probe issues a bit similar to yours which have cleared when I re-homed the controller.

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General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach3 Probing Anomolies

« Last post by JohnHaine on May 18, 2025, 01:30:10 AM »

What do you mean by Mach 3 board? Could you provide a photo?

3

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach3 Probing Anomolies

« Last post by shortj042 on May 17, 2025, 11:23:34 PM »

The board is a Mach3 board coupled with a custom manufacturer breakout board.

Tonight we managed to get it all working properly and homed 4 times successfully, but then it all went pot again, reverting back to doing the same as before. No idea what's going on. Makes no sense.

It's like the machine doesn't remember the info from the files.

question, Does the machine have to read the files each time you probe, or are the held in some memory on the board?

Thanks again

4

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach3 Probing Anomolies

« Last post by TPS on May 16, 2025, 04:30:07 AM »

witch board/motion controller are you using?

5

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach3 Probing Anomolies

« Last post by JohnHaine on May 16, 2025, 04:14:00 AM »

Sometimes that behaviour results because the machine isn't homed or referenced correctly. Try restarting/rehoming

6

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach3 Probing Anomolies

« Last post by shortj042 on May 15, 2025, 03:40:17 PM »

Thanks for the suggestion TPS.

Here's what happened:

G31 Z-10 F20      Y axis moved in - direction. Right speed but didn't stop at the desired distance (kept going)

G31 X10 F50        Y axis moved in - direction. Right speed but didn't stop at the desired distance (kept going)

G31 Y10 F50       Y axis moved in - direction. Right speed but didn't stop at the desired distance (kept going)

Is it possible I have a bad board?

Thanks again

7

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 / ESS suddenly started crashing mid G-code!

« Last post by Kimcnc on May 15, 2025, 02:20:19 AM »

Issue found!! Faultry electric motor on my dust collector! It startdd emitting crazy EMI, identified by monitoring ESS diagnostics and turning on/off the dust collector.

Thanks, you we're spot on with your assumption that there were some issues with EMI!

8

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach3 Probing Anomolies

« Last post by TPS on May 15, 2025, 01:26:17 AM »

i would do some simple test's by using MDI input line:

first make sure you are on absolute mode:

Code: [Select]

  G90

then try to do a probe with Z:

Code: [Select]

  G31 Z-10 F20

this will do a simple Z-probe 10mm down with speed 20mm/min

i asume you are in metric unit's.

then you can see what happens without using scripts were you are not sure what is going on.
 

9

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: How to send command to the motion controller while probing?

« Last post by dibor on May 15, 2025, 12:21:15 AM »

Script is WORK!

Here small video: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/a8wUrA06kIQ

10

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 / ESS suddenly started crashing mid G-code!

« Last post by joeaverage on May 14, 2025, 04:22:11 PM »

Hi,
I do not think it is the Gcode, you have after all used it a number of times.

Look at the end of the log file. You'll see repeated activations of the ESS Estop signal over only several milliseconds.
Likewise prior to that series of events you have a signal 1186 'FeedHold Not Allowed' there again over several milliseconds.
Both suggest electrical noise.

Do you have physical filtering, ie a RC filter on each input? Do you have any software filtering in the Pins Config page for both inputs?

Craig