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Author Topic: Mach4 Printer Port Discussions  (Read 1243633 times)

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Offline ART

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Re: Mach4 Printer Port Discussions
« Reply #1080 on: April 24, 2017, 05:13:07 PM »
 I consider this a success. 

   >>That woudl seem to prove your driver is fine..

But what is odd to me now is that when I initiate a step I see a differential in voltage on the input side of the micro step driver, but on the output side of the driver I see no change at all; when initiated by the Mach4 GUI.  I do see DRO change, so Darwin is sending the signal, but I see no evidence on the output side of the micro step driver.  I am leaning towards a replacement on the micro step driver side.

 >> How much change do you see? It coudl be a charge pump setting is killing the ground or something.. Hard to say..but iot sounds like the driver is fine.

On another note however, I am looking at the spindle setup through Darwin.  I'm setting it up on the relay side of the break out board and I am using the DCM and FOR signals from the VFD.  In my breakout board the pin that should be doing the talking to the spindle is pin 16.  So I have all of this setup and enabled in Darwin as well as setup on the Mach settings output tab.  I also have the freq range set on the Darwin Configuration screen for a range 0 to 400 Hz per specification of the spindle and vfd settings.  When I click start I see the DRO go to the minimum setting that I supplied for the signal.  The status bar in the bottom says Signal 5 set to 1; however, the relay fails to close the connection to initiate the spindle from turning on.

   That too coudl be charge pump...

Art


Maybe I should just get rid of all this and take up basketweaving???
Re: Mach4 Printer Port Discussions
« Reply #1081 on: April 24, 2017, 08:42:21 PM »
So I have a confession to make.  I have no charge pump(s) on my system... ...at least I don't think I do.  I plan on contacting the guys that made the control system tomorrow when they get back in to verify, but this is the system that I'm using.

https://buildyourcnc.com/item/cnc-computer-system-redLeaf#prettyPhoto

Really all it has is motherboard to break out board to x / y / z / a micro step drive.  I'm thinking I need charge pumps setup throughout this system.

Everything appears to be grounded and secured.

Thanks again for you responses.

Offline ART

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Re: Mach4 Printer Port Discussions
« Reply #1082 on: April 25, 2017, 07:06:32 AM »
Looks like it has an enable pin that needs to be hooked up..
 Might wanna ask someone with one if there is some setting that affects the
breakout board.. Im thinking you have a setting bad is all..

Art
Re: Mach4 Printer Port Discussions
« Reply #1083 on: June 27, 2017, 03:03:33 PM »
I am trying to evaluate Mach4 to determine whether to purchase Mach3 or Mach4.  My machine is a Windows 7 Pro OS w/SP1, on a Dual Core 3GHz CPU with 8Gb RAM PC  My system uses a parallel port.

I has already tested out Mach3 and everything was working fine with the hardware setup I have.   I backed up my files and uninstalled Mach3 and have proceeded with installing Mach4 Demo.  I have installed mach4 and also installed a licensed copy of the Legacy Parallel port plugin.  What I saw upon the install of the plugin is that it would not install the 2008 redistributables.  They were then installed separately, as administrator.  The plugin install was then restarted and it installed successfully.  I then added the license to Mach4...Restarted the machine...Tested Darwintest and it runs fine.  Now Mach 4 is run and during the initialization of the program it displays a dialog box; which states -  

Darwin Error
    
       An error has occured. No Admin Rights?.  Contact support

I have installed all software as an administrator.  What is causing this problem? ???  
Re: Mach4 Printer Port Discussions
« Reply #1084 on: October 19, 2017, 04:33:20 PM »
Hi, just testing darwin on my system, my motors are choppy and seem to lag a bit.

my old mach3 system died so i had to build another one. it's a 3 axis router table running IM804 stepper drivers 4-6 amp.

i can turn them when the systems off with my fingers and i'm not feeling any binding but when running it just seems slow and you can hear the steppers hesitate at times.

the darwin control and status water fall is showing 2 lines not one. Img attached.

why is that? and could that be causing my issue?

pentium 3ghz with 2g ram
windows xp
using PCI parallel port drivers loaded fine

Offline ART

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Re: Mach4 Printer Port Discussions
« Reply #1085 on: October 19, 2017, 05:06:53 PM »
Hi:

  The waveform doesnt look bad really, it basically shows a jitter of about 10us happening every few cycles of the driver.
Hard to say what it is, some process thats dependent on interrupts by the look of it. Id try tweaking your tuning, the
steppers should be driving OK with that waveform I think.

Art

Offline Sage

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Re: Mach4 Printer Port Discussions
« Reply #1086 on: November 04, 2017, 07:56:18 AM »
Does anyone have the parallel port working with Mach4. Specifically with the charge pump activated? I'd be interested in comparing configurations.
I have been in contact (for several months) with NFS support and they have confirmed that (as I observed) the charge pump signal from Darwin initially comes up and then fails just after Mach4 startup. It requires a toggle of the enable / disable screen button to get it going again. This would not be a big problem except that when if fails the DRO's still change but the axis' do not move because the lack of charge pump signal has disabled the drives. So then the disable/enable trick has to be done and a re-calibrate is required.
 In my latest exchange with support they have indicated that they have no (financial) interest in working further to correct the issue and suggest I purchase a motion controller instead. Fair enough I guess but it makes me wonder why they continue to sell the parallel port plug-in (Darwin) when it has this bug. Then it makes me wonder - if they have sold more than the one I have - what have others done to make it work. Maybe I've missed something.
 So, Is the parallel port finally dead?

Sage

Offline Azalin

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Re: Mach4 Printer Port Discussions
« Reply #1087 on: November 17, 2017, 03:31:35 AM »
@ART

Should we wait for a new version of the Darwin plugin or is the project finalized?

I'm asking because I don't want to use my hardware without safety charge pump and the Darwin in my system works very unstable with SCHP enabled.
« Last Edit: November 17, 2017, 03:37:30 AM by Azalin »

Offline Azalin

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Re: Mach4 Printer Port Discussions
« Reply #1088 on: November 17, 2017, 03:46:09 AM »
I finally figured out i had to put a 5khz signal out to the charge pump pin and then invert the signal to the drives enable pin to get the thing going.

What was your base frequency? And how do you invert the SCHP signal to the drives "enable" pin?

Thanks.

Offline ART

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Re: Mach4 Printer Port Discussions
« Reply #1089 on: November 17, 2017, 07:44:21 AM »
Hi Guys:

   Sorry I missed this thread till now. Darwin is no longer is development, it basically IS what it IS. It seems to work on
most installations using it, I have very few complaints over time. The Charge pump shoudl work fine, but osme have had to
set a different frequency, I have heard requested 2.5Khz works well on some baords for some reason.


Art