I have a pre-2004 MAXNC-10 (which means an older controller board) and when I did the setup as shown here ftp://machsupport.com/XMLs/Mach%203%20and%20the%20MaxNC%2010%20Open%20Loop.pdf .  When I press a movement key on the keyboard or click the button on the screen I see movement.  If I press and hold for either I see that same movement in the beginning, but then there is a lesser tone from the motors and they don't turn.  

Read that if you try to give the motors too much they will not move, I have tried moving the velocity from 120 to 50 and the acceleration from 10 to 5.  That changed the tone of the motors, but not the lack of a continuous jog.

I am doing this on the demo version (2.0 of M3) to start.  I ran the roadrunner program and compared to the DRO's it appeared that the table was moving at a much smaller scale.  Not sure if I was seeing things, but if it helps, I thought I'd mention it.

Not any help for the main problem but...

The roadrunner code is in Inch units so if your machine is set up for Metric units then you need to add the G20 command at the start of the code to get correct dimensional movements.

Tweakie.

Should have mentioned that I have the units set up for inches.

I made a video of what I am seeing.  I don't stay at each menu very long, so please pause the video if you want to see them a little more closely.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PPySSPR6Rg&feature=youtu.be

Try lowering you velocity and accel in motor tuning. Say 50% and see what happens.
RICH

On your video, the first run (continuous) looks and sounds like a classic resonance problem (growl) followed by a stall (higher whine). The second run (step) looks and sounds like resonance with (possible) missed steps but with no actual stall.

Two other things I noticed from your video: You have Max NC 10 Wave drive selected whereas in the PDF you linked to he's using Max CL Mode. The other is a lesser point: He has an output set to pin 10. Pin 10 is an input so this makes little sense.

Try lowering you velocity and accel in motor tuning. Say 50% and see what happens.
RICH

Hi Rich, you know what's funny, I had seen a post in my searching that said to cut them in half, so I had done that.  Didn't work.  In the spirit of things, I cut those in half again and guess what, it worked.  I went from the 120 and 10 that the pdf shows to 50 and 5, then to 25 and 2.5.  That last one works just fine (only did X this morning, will do the others when I get home) and doesn't seem to be very slow at all.

On your video, the first run (continuous) looks and sounds like a classic resonance problem (growl) followed by a stall (higher whine). The second run (step) looks and sounds like resonance with (possible) missed steps but with no actual stall.

Two other things I noticed from your video: You have Max NC 10 Wave drive selected whereas in the PDF you linked to he's using Max CL Mode. The other is a lesser point: He has an output set to pin 10. Pin 10 is an input so this makes little sense.

In one of the first paragraphs in the pdf it mentions that post-2004 machines have the same board for open and closed loop, so the CL option should be used for both.  From my understanding, the wave option is for pre-2004 boards that are open loop.  I have no idea about the pin 10 setting in the pdf, will research that a little more to try and understand.

Now to work on the spindle, assuming the Y and Z mimic the X settings that are now working.  I saw a few people just control the spindle with a variable switch.  I might just do that since I have used the same exact thing to control a mini lathe in the past.

See where it skips ,try say 40 and lower by 5 to see what the max would be. Accel aroud 3 should be good to go.
RICH

Sounds good.  I was just thinking about that earleir today.

You mentioned roadrunner was much smaller on table than DROs, so sounds like your steps per unit are incorrect. If that is the case then that will also throw out your Velocity and Acceleration as Mach will be thinking it is moving a particular distance in a set time when in fact it is not, same with accel.
So get your steps per unit set t the correct amount first then, and only then will you get a true Velocity and acceleration.
Hood