I just had my old control computer from 2006 finally die. It was running a version of Mach 3 probably from about 3 years ago but unfortunately I'm not sure exactly which version.  That version was working fine on the old computer which was running Windows 2000. The computer I just moved to has Windows XP installed on it. I blew away everything unnecessary, stopped all services I could, etc.  Running the very old 2006 version of Mach 3 results in good smooth 3d carving when CV mode is turned on but it's losing steps like crazy. The Mach driver check looked great so I figured I should really upgrade to the current build of Mach 3.

Sure enough, the lost steps went away and it runs very well, until I turned CV on and tried a 3d relief carving. It runs exactly as if in exact stop mode. CV is showing as being on but no matter what settings I use it behaves as if it is off. Nothing I do will make CV behave. It's really strange that I'm using my old settings files which worked fine before. Is there something else that needs to be done like recreating all my settings in the current version? Did something change in the settings files over the last 3-6 years to make them incompatible in some way?

Thanks for any light anyone can shed on this.

Hi Patrick,

The next posting may be relevant to your problem http://www.machsupport.com/forum/index.php/topic,21822.0.html

Tweakie.

Thanks Tweakie. I checked that out and tried a bunch of different values including extremes but the behavior is identical.

Found it! The setting that was screwing me up was on the settings page. It was "Z is 2.5d on Output #6"  That was checked for some reason. Unchecking it seems to allow CV to work and everything is working great now.

Good news Patrick, I am pleased you got it sorted.

Tweakie.