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Author Topic: Mach4 Printer Port Discussions  (Read 1243717 times)

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Offline ART

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Re: Mach4 Printer Port Discussions
« Reply #190 on: August 04, 2014, 09:37:36 PM »
Hi Guys:

 This is current plugin with just a change to the text file to indicate it allows 4 axis on control..

Art

Offline dude1

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Re: Mach4 Printer Port Discussions
« Reply #191 on: August 05, 2014, 04:26:54 PM »
hay art the new release fix up the problem with my machine needing a very low pulse rate.
the problem I am having with the spindle its a problem with the computer and M4 nothing to do with Darwin, part of the problem exists when I don't have Darwin on the computer.
its the only problem I have everything else works well.

Offline ART

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Re: Mach4 Printer Port Discussions
« Reply #192 on: August 05, 2014, 05:18:42 PM »
Daniel:

 Thx, I know its hard to separate into whats at fault sometimes...

Art

Offline dude1

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Re: Mach4 Printer Port Discussions
« Reply #193 on: August 05, 2014, 05:38:23 PM »
yea its a conflict between the macros if i remove the m3 from the macro folder some of the problems go but it still wont change speeds just on off ill connect a pot to the super pid so I can a least cut something
Re: Mach4 Printer Port Discussions
« Reply #194 on: August 05, 2014, 07:49:24 PM »
Hi Art

Can you tell me why you decided to reserve pins 1 and 2 on port one for the probe in Darwin?

It's just that it sort of offends my sense of the correct order of things.  ;D

I would have thought that the motors would take precedence over just about everything else and yet they are relegated to a position behind the probe (which I may or may not have). It just isn't right.  :'(

Bob Willson
Jeremy Robert (Bob) Willson

Offline ART

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Re: Mach4 Printer Port Discussions
« Reply #195 on: August 05, 2014, 08:53:28 PM »
Bob:

:)

  No pins are reserved for anything... The signal number is reserved is all. Any signal can be any pin and any port.
Turns out Mach doesnt easily report to me the probe pin, ( or didnt when it was written) so I reserved the signal number so Id know to use Signal 1 as a probe for example.. BUT that signal, same as all other can be set to any pin and any port number. Dont be fooled by the signal being reserved, its just the order of the signal thats reserved...

Art
Re: Mach4 Printer Port Discussions
« Reply #196 on: August 06, 2014, 01:22:20 AM »
Hi Art
I got an XP machine and install Mach 4 and  Darwin and things would not work the programme would not open. It says the configuration is wrong. So after reading some more on this forum I then started to install VBredist first from the Microsoft site then an older version still no joy I then saw your comment about installing Gearotic Demo which has VB 2008 and joy of joys the programme works. So after a couple of days playing about I have just bought a license. Now just to wait for a plugin for a Smoothstepper. Thanks to you for your help.
Bob

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Re: Mach4 Printer Port Discussions
« Reply #197 on: August 06, 2014, 08:14:03 AM »
Bob:

  Glad it helped, that redist issue is a complex one and depends on a users machine to a great extent, nice to
hear installing Gearotic worked.. :))

Art
Re: Mach4 Printer Port Discussions
« Reply #198 on: August 07, 2014, 11:15:57 PM »
Art,

I finally got some time to look at my issues with movement with Mach 4 build 1914 and Darwin 1.10.  I made a video of the behavior so you can see what I'm seeing.  The link for the video is:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAqcAZq-vPM&list=UU27_FcP3Gq_GKOvqGMof2tg


Going over the finer points... I'm able to set Darwin to any value above 17kHz as you suggested. In Darwin, once I have the port and the charge pump enabled, I can jog smoothly at full speed on X.  Y seizes at the top end of the rate (say above 80%), but runs smoothly up until then.  When I exit out of Darwin and try jogging in Mach 4 (running at 40kHz) the X and Z axis simply sputter and jerk at 28% jog rate.  The CPU in both cases shows Mach 4 bouncing around between 60% and 90%.  The problem doesn't look like it's CPU bound.  I also tried reducing my video interval in the screen set from 50ms to 40ms, with no improvement. I'm running with a very good nVidia GTX 550 TI with at least a 1Gb of RAM on it.


-Freeman
I'm not a complete idiot...
    there are some parts missing.
Re: Mach4 Printer Port Discussions
« Reply #199 on: August 08, 2014, 03:37:23 AM »
Hello Freeman

I have the same issue as you. It has been reported by other users that something changed between Mach 4 build 1900 and build 1914.

My CPU load is maxed at 100% while jogging with Mach 4 my servos sound like crap. I can jog inside Darwin and motors are smooth and I

have no complaints. I wish I had a chance to test with build 1900 so I could see if it Mach 4 works. I have read that this seems to be the case

on older systems. A newer computer isn't an option right now since Mach 3 runs so well on my current computer. I'll have to wait for the next

build release to see if CPU overload has been fixed. Thats whats causing the motors to not jog smoothly in Mach 4.

Dell Otiplex GX270
2.8GHz P4 CPU
4GB System RAM
ATI Radeon 9550 256MB Video Card
Win XP SP3 32bit

Eric