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Author Topic: Mach4 Printer Port Discussions  (Read 1243679 times)

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Offline ART

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Re: Mach4 Printer Port Discussions
« Reply #440 on: August 21, 2014, 07:49:00 AM »
Thx,

  Its good to know it made a difference, I guess those printer ports chips dont like operating at 16 bits , Ill bear that in mind.
Glad to hear things are btter, Ive been running m4 alot last 3 days, no issues noted other than a few small api items Ive sent to the developers.

Art
Re: Mach4 Printer Port Discussions
« Reply #441 on: August 21, 2014, 08:18:46 PM »
I've recently decided to give the parallel port driver a try with Mach 4. My experience hasn't been perfect. With the last two drivers, 1-15 and 1-17, I'm only able to get my Y axis to move.  I've played with the drivertext.exe several times and it loads fine. When I configure in Mach 4, all looks good.  I see the buffer out of bounds message occasionally, and The Y axis still moves, but no x or z.  I also use Mach 3 on the same machine, so I know things work.  Any ideas where to start troubleshooting?  With 1-17 I'm seeing more crashes and hangs than I did with 1-15.  Admittedly my PC is not a speed demon.  Windows XP, 2.13 Core 2 2.13 MHz , 2gb ram, 256mb video.

Trent

Offline ART

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Re: Mach4 Printer Port Discussions
« Reply #442 on: August 21, 2014, 08:58:11 PM »
Trent:

 My system isnt much better really. Is your CPU usage high when 4 is running?

 You say only Y?  Id advise checking it one bit at a time. Does your Breakout Board have LED's? Does the DIR led toggle when you jog right
and left? Make sure all outputs are disabled to ensure none of them conflict with a motor pin. Turn on only one motor till its perfect...

Art

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Re: Mach4 Printer Port Discussions
« Reply #443 on: August 21, 2014, 09:46:17 PM »
Hi Guys:

  Thx for the reports. I double checked the code due to a report of flashing led's.. I did find where
the DIR bits may have gotten reset. This version unfortunately requires another driver update to version 1.18
which youll see on the waterfall screen if properly installed.

 My appologies for the weird symptoms some of you may have gotten..

Art
 
Re: Mach4 Printer Port Discussions
« Reply #444 on: August 22, 2014, 12:00:37 AM »
Okay, having reviewed the video for the 10th time, it occurred to me that I should be able to move my motors while running the driver test. Is this correct Art?
Re: Mach4 Printer Port Discussions
« Reply #445 on: August 22, 2014, 01:12:39 AM »
Ok, so I've took some time and watched the LEDs on my board while running Mach3 - btw, my board is the C1 rev10 from CNC4PC, so LEDs on all step/dir connections.

In Mach 3 all related motor LEDs are off by default.  On first move, the step LED lights up regardless of direction.  The direction determines whether or not the DIR LED lights up (as far as I can remember now, being late and I'm nearly an old fart).  Going X+ lights up the DIR LED, while then going X- turns off the DIR LED.  This behavior can be observed across Y and Z axis as well.

Now, in Mach 4, it is a similar story, but not quite.  The Y axis seems to behave as it should.  I disabled the other motors and then started to work through them all individually.  While the Y works as expected, I'm seeing interesting results on the failing X axis.  If I go X+ first, I only see the DIR LED light very dimly, as though it is getting no power.  The Step LED does not light at all.  However, if I then press X-, the Step DIR lights up brightly and stays lit (as I would have expected it).  If I then press teh X+ again, the Step LED goes out, while the DIR LED again lights very dimly.  

I stopped at X failing because this old man gots to go to bed (having started with Y because I knew I could get it to work and wanted to verify my sanity).  Will conclude next evening with Z and see if there are similar results.  I suspect that I have something crossed somewhere, but then again, maybe not.  Mach 3 works flawlessly, so it could be a number of things.  The CPU by the way stayed quite low - never over 10-15% that I remember seeing.  

I saw the same results with 1-17, and with 1-18 just released today having seen it posted while I was checking for feedback - Thanks Art!

Trent

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Re: Mach4 Printer Port Discussions
« Reply #446 on: August 22, 2014, 07:05:11 AM »
Trent:

   You have reversed th eStep and Dir pin on that axis. The dim ilghting is the step, the hard on led is the DIR, sounds very much like their reversed
in your setup. Reverse the step and dir pin and see what happens..

Art

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Re: Mach4 Printer Port Discussions
« Reply #447 on: August 22, 2014, 12:48:34 PM »
Art, did you enabled the MPG capability in Darwin?


Pablo

Offline ART

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Re: Mach4 Printer Port Discussions
« Reply #448 on: August 22, 2014, 01:32:23 PM »
Pablo:

 As of last nights version, yes, it is turned on. Set the MPG count and encoder number and it will send a message each time the increment is
equal or more than detent.

Art
Re: Mach4 Printer Port Discussions
« Reply #449 on: August 22, 2014, 01:59:24 PM »
Art,

I had my hopes really high with your suggestion I had the reversed the eStep and Dir pin on the X axis.  I did a quick swap on my way out this morning to verify that I had indeed swapped the pins.  However, to my dismay, changing the pin assignments didn't make any difference, except that the LEDs lit exactly the same way just opposite what it was before, and still no movement.  I'll give it a more thorough work over this evening or tomorrow and verify the settings.  I'm pretty confident I had the settings correct because I had printed screen shots of all my settings in Mach 3 and entered them exactly as I had them into Mach 4.

I have an older C10 Bob I may try for kicks and giggles, but would take much more effort to rewire and test.

Trent