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Author Topic: No motor movement. Need xml checked.  (Read 17579 times)

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No motor movement. Need xml checked.
« on: June 15, 2009, 08:29:41 AM »
Hey everyone. I have been pulling my hair out with this thing. I have a small 3-axis machine and when I first got it, I installed Win2k, then the Mach3 software, plugged in the machine, set my pins&ports based on pictures of the settings sent with the machine and off I went. The unit ran for four or five months with no problem (other than my own errors in G-code) and was quite happily cutting along. Then I moved and the unit sat for about 6 or seven months. When I started it back up (nothing had changed. Same computer same cable, ect) none of the motors will run at all.

Would someone please take a look at my xml file and see if anything glaring shows up? I need to get this going. I have thirty years of troubleshooting expoerience and have come to the conclusion that something on the computer has changed and I am about to format the hard drive and start from scratch. Before that, I would like to know if there is anything simple that I have overlooked.

Thanks.

Hollye

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Re: No motor movement. Need xml checked.
« Reply #1 on: June 15, 2009, 08:57:06 AM »
xml looks ok but then again there is nothing set in it except the motors, this could be that you have nothing else working via Mach such as limits, spindle etc or it could be you have attached the wrong xml.
 What Drives do you use also what if any Breakout board?

Hood
Re: No motor movement. Need xml checked.
« Reply #2 on: June 15, 2009, 10:07:20 AM »
Hood, I am at work but I have a small 3-axis router with none of the bells and whistles like you guys have. It worked fine before the move and just sat. Thank you for taking a look at the xml. I was concerned about the step pulse speed setting being 0. I think I am at a stage where I will wait until I get off of work and format the hard drive and reinstall like I did when I recieved the unit. Through my troubleshooting endeavors, I have seen some pretty bizarre things with this driver scheme and am not sure that everything is right. It may be that something I have on the computer is wreaking havoc on it and I want to strip it down and start new.

Hollye
Re: No motor movement. Need xml checked.
« Reply #3 on: June 15, 2009, 10:11:00 AM »
One other thing... does anyone know if the demo version sometimes just shuts down after so many uses or something? It says it is good for an indefinate period of time. Is this true or am I fighting for nothing?

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Re: No motor movement. Need xml checked.
« Reply #4 on: June 15, 2009, 12:04:41 PM »
Demo is good for always at the moment, things may change in the future,  there at the moment limitations with the demo such as Run From Here, Threading in Turn, Mill limited to 500 lines and Turn 200lines.

What kind of drives/bob do you have?
Hood
Re: No motor movement. Need xml checked.
« Reply #5 on: June 15, 2009, 12:21:19 PM »
Hood,

I have to get to the unit to determine the make of the drives. The router was made by a private vendor on Ebay and each axis is driven by a separate driver board based on the SLA7051. The boards can be found at http://www.pminmo.com/sla7051.

I hope this helps. I appreciate the help and when I get off at 3:00 I will check the motor types and let you know.

Thanks;

Hollye

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Re: No motor movement. Need xml checked.
« Reply #6 on: June 15, 2009, 02:00:11 PM »
No problem, was just wondering if either your drives or Bob may require an enable signal because if they do then its not in the xml.

Hood
Re: No motor movement. Need xml checked.
« Reply #7 on: June 15, 2009, 03:31:31 PM »
Hood,

What I can see on the motors is Vexta PK266-088-215. I tried enabling the port 14 on enable 1 and no go. I also do not have any inputs other than 2,3,5,6,8,9

Hollye

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Re: No motor movement. Need xml checked.
« Reply #8 on: June 15, 2009, 03:36:07 PM »
It will depend on your drive or BOB (Break Out Board) whether you need an enable, most BOBs have some sort of enable but often it is just shorted out with a jumper wire on the BOB itself so no need to use an enable from Mach if its not wanted.
 If you could take a pic of your control box and post it, it might help us find where there could be a problem.

Hood
Re: No motor movement. Need xml checked.
« Reply #9 on: June 15, 2009, 04:16:20 PM »
Hood,

Here are some pics. I am stymied. I have isolated each board in the controller, checked the voltage going to them and isolated axis both at the board input and the motor input. I get absolutely no movement. All motors have idle current. If one was bad I should be able to get one of the others working. I am beginning to suspect some weird grounding issue or something. I have tried running it on two different computers, two different cables. One other thing I could try is to run it from a comm port instead of the parallel one.

I just do not know how something can run perfectly for months and then not work after sitting. all the motors turn by hand when the controller is off so the drives are not locked up. Even then I would expect to blow a fuse or something.

Hollye