Actually your BOSS6 was full stepping with a 2:1 ratio on the belt drives. The SMD cards are interchangeable between BOSS 5 & BOSS 6.
I have used other software and it was always 1000 per inch. It has to be Mach 3 as that is the only change.

Well wont argue as to be honest I cant remember but gearing on mine is 2.5:1 and I am almost certain it is 1/2 stepping, that may be the difference between Boss 6 and 6.1. Been looking for the pdf but not found it so far.

Well I dont have an answer for either of you, yours needs to be doubled and nickles halved, very strange indeed.

Hood

The difference between BOSS 6 and BOSS 6.1 was in the Bridgeport software. The Iron was all the same for the Boss 6 mills in the same series. (Series I or Series II) BOSS 3, 4 & 5 iron was mostly the same different in electronics and software.
Did you change motors? I have been doing tech support for Bridgeport CNCs for the last 18 years and the 6s have all been 2:1.
Darrell
 

The UK ones were built by Adcock and Shipley and they had different setup, for example they have metric ballscrews 5mm pitch. This  definitely had the original motors and gearing when I got it, its now got new steppers but belt and pulleys are original.
Hood

Edit, now you have me wondering if it is 2:1 will have to look tomorrow at the steps per I have set

Edit again, just found a backup xml, set to 1000steps per so thats 200 steps x 10 microsteps x 2.5 gearing divided by 5mm = 1000 so definitely 2.5:1

MachineMaster .... are you still using Mach3 ... how long? if so have you had any hickups ? I am wondering if I can trust it not to try to correct itself in the middle of the job as it has done this a few times in past on me screwing up the piece completely.  Even if I set the drives to full step I might end up getting half the distance plus the resonance won't be good.

Hood,
I see the difference being that your mill is using metric ball screws where all of the ones that I have worked on were 5 turns per inch ball screws.

Nickle,
I have been using Mach 3 for about 1 month and I haven't had any hickups yet. I am running Windows 2000 on the computer on the mill and I haven't bought a license yet because I am still testing like they said to do on the web site. I mostly like what I have found except for the need to have a mouse. I am working at getting things set up to work from the keyboard much like the AHHA software does.

Now I am going to have to set the oscilloscope up out in the shop and check the pulse streams to see what is going on.

I'm very new to Mach3, and am hesitant to post on your topic, as I'm by no means a knowledgeable Mach3 user.

However... I know a few things about steppers, and some of your posts seem to present conflicting information.

You cannot be half stepping if you are doing Wave Drive.  Those are somewhat mutually exlusive terms.

Full stepping uses phases 1, 3, 5, 7.
Wave Drive uses phases 2, 4, 6, 8.
Half stepping uses phases 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.... in fact it's a combination of Full Stepping and Wave Drive that produces half-stepping.

So... if you've got something that says it is Wave Drive, you are still "full stepping" in that it moves one full step increment per phase change.

The difference between Full Stepping and Wave Drive is that Full stepping powers both A and B phases at once, whereas Wave Drive powers only 1 of the phases at a time.

Look at page 3 of the following document.

http://www.solarbotics.net/library/pdflib/pdf/motorbas.pdf

I'm sure I didn't post that link properly (I'm in Quick Reply) but just cut and paste...

Also... this page has a pretty good representation of the differences between, Full, Wave, and Half stepping.

http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~ih/doc/stepper/control2/sequence.html

Finally... here's a pretty good little "Stepper Fundamentals" tutorial (from StMicroelectronics) on the Digikey web-site.

http://dkc1.digikey.com/us/en/tod/STMicroelectronics/StepperFundamentals/Stepper_Fundamentals.html

Hope some of the above helps.

Best regards,

Michael

You are correct. That is why I said that Bridgeport (at least the US model) was full step only.

Hood,
Did your BOSS 6 have 3 SMD cards and an ACC card mounted on the right hand side of the main card cage cabinet? If so it was definately silgle step.

Michael .. interesting ... I will have to driver manufacture tommorrow and find out how they are handling the step and direction.

I have just completed an install on another computer .. AMD this time 1GhZ , 512 ram ... same thing ... so this has to me has to be the way the controller / driver is interpitating what and how Mach is sending its signals.

What gets me though ... is that it worked for almost a full month until I went to tune it a bit more.