I have been using Mach3 sucessfully for 12 months. My first bug and one which I am writing to see if anyone else has had happen before I spend hours troubleshooting my system. If I try to cut something out using my CNC router, the Z axis works fine. Unfortunately the "Y" and "X" axis only move a fraction of the distance the cut is supposed to be.

If I calibrate the steps - ie ask it to move 100mm, it will move 100mm. If I jog the machine it will jog and count fine. As soon as I try to cut something out it will not work. Example, a 40mm square pocket moved about 1mm each X,Y axis and that was it. I have tried creating the gcode in metric and imperial with no success.

I have found for some reason Mach3 seems to be confused with its native units. It is supposed to be imperial but when calibrating it moves in metric. It also confused the metric counter with inches and affected my soft limits. Meaning when it hit 52mm it thought it had hit 52" and stopped itself.

Oh and at one stage Mach3 changed its own motor settings - at first I couldnt work out why it was moving so slow to find the accel and vel were turned right down.

Ideas anyone? This was a fully functional machine as of yesterday so am a little confused.

Regards
Boyd

Suggest you create a new profile and delete the old one. 

RICH

Attach your xml, I am sure there must be a setting wrong and likely it can be found easily by looking at your xml.
Hood

Ok. For the third time - file attached lol

Your native units are set to Imperial as you knew but your X and Y steps per unit looks extremely low (Z looks more like what I would expect) If you multiply the X and Y steps per unit by 25.4 I think you should get the correct distance. You will also have to divide the Vel and Accel of X and Y by 25.4 as they look, also, to be set up as if metric units.
Hood

Hi Hood. My steps per unit are very low on X and Y due to my setup. The Z axis is ballscrew whereas the X and Y are belt 1:1. They were correct and ok before but now something has shifted and I cant help but think my software is corrupted. For some reason, I am able to calibrate the steps per unit in mm with the native settings in inches. If I use inches when I calibrate my axis, it just wont come right. So, it is in inches as native units. When I go to axis calibration, if I ask it to move 100, it will move 100mm. All good. Now when I try to run the program it just moves the X and Y axis a very small amount. I hope I have explained this correctly. I do need to look into the correct settings of the Vel and Accel - for some reason the program is changing these settings without my input? I get this feeling I should reinstall Mach 3? Thoughts Hood? The issue I have here is the fact the machine has started doing this after hours of running perfectly. Regards Boyd

Dont screw about with the calibration, it is much easier and more accurate to calculate and enter directly.
Have you entered the values directly as I suggested, ie multiply steps per by 25.4 and divide Vel and Accel by 25.4.  BTW you need to press Save Axis settings once you have done that and before you move on to the next axis or they will not stick.
Hood