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Author Topic: setting up Mach3 with unknown belt on XY table  (Read 3309 times)

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setting up Mach3 with unknown belt on XY table
« on: March 08, 2012, 03:49:51 PM »
Hi folks,

I have inherited a XY table that was use to taked samples from a plate. The axis can move about 24 x 17 inches or 60 x 45 cm. The X stepper drives a belt, the Y stepper drives a long lineshaft(?) along the X axis, that in turns drive a belt. The steppers are PK268-03B (3V, 3A, 200 steps per turn) - datasheet attached (see page 241) if it helps.

How do I set my "Motor Tuning" variables, since I don't know the specs of the belts and the lineshaft?
The wheel (sorry don't know the proper term) driving the belt has 32 teeth, the belt has 1 tooth every 5mm... I guess it means that one turn of the wheel should move 32 belt teeth, or 16 cm... but if I turn the stepper manually one full revolution the X carriage moves about 8-9 cm (some calculations must be wrong here...)

So I assumed 3200 steps for 80 mm, or 40 steps per mm. If I use these settings... the steppers get noisy, but nothing moves.

Also, the table tends to vibrate at lower speeds... is there a rule of thumb for smooth operations?

many thanks for your help -

Thomas

Offline RICH

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Re: setting up Mach3 with unknown belt on XY table
« Reply #1 on: March 08, 2012, 04:41:24 PM »
In Mach mill screen click ALT6 tab, in the lower left corner you will see axis calibration.
You tell how far to more and then Mach asks how far you actualy moved and based on that it will calculate the steps and change them.
So you can just use a ruller to get relatively close and continue refining based on how well you can measure the actual move.

RICH

Re: setting up Mach3 with unknown belt on XY table
« Reply #2 on: March 08, 2012, 04:58:34 PM »
wow clever program.Thank you!

Thomas
Re: setting up Mach3 with unknown belt on XY table
« Reply #3 on: March 09, 2012, 09:09:53 AM »
Is the number of steps per revolution entered in Mach3 at all, or is this only used by the driver? In Motor Tuning, the value "steps per..." is only for the number of steps per unit of distance - right?
Re: setting up Mach3 with unknown belt on XY table
« Reply #4 on: March 09, 2012, 10:09:19 AM »
Is the number of steps per revolution entered in Mach3 at all, or is this only used by the driver? In Motor Tuning, the value "steps per..." is only for the number of steps per unit of distance - right?
#1 =  Nope
 #2 =  Correct
Re: setting up Mach3 with unknown belt on XY table
« Reply #5 on: March 09, 2012, 10:10:33 AM »
thanks - can't wait to start tinkering this week end...

Thomas