Hello Guest it is March 19, 2024, 07:18:27 AM

Author Topic: Mach4 Printer Port Discussions  (Read 1243739 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline ART

*
  • *
  •  1,702 1,702
  • Tough as soggy paper.
    • View Profile
Re: Mach4 Printer Port Discussions
« Reply #700 on: February 07, 2015, 12:53:48 PM »
Glad to hear. :)

Art

Offline Sage

*
  •  365 365
    • View Profile
Re: Mach4 Printer Port Discussions
« Reply #701 on: February 19, 2015, 04:22:11 PM »
Hi Art:

It's been a while. I figured I'd let things mature a bit instead of pulling my hair out every few days.

I downloaded the latest Mach4 2230 and also your latest Darwin from a few posts back. It's showing 1.21 over 1.23 is that correct?
Having to reconfigure EVERYTHING from scratch is very annoying. Is there a file(s) or something that can be preserved to keep all the settings - both for Mach and Darwin?
I took photos of all the setting screens and I think I have it all back to the way it was previously but I'm having a few problems. It WAS working very well.

Are there still issues with the charge pump being generated from Mach?
I have the output set up in Mach to point to the named port in Darwin and the correct port pin set in Darwin but I don't see any frequency display in Darwin diagnostics. (frequency when active display is zeros)
I know there were issues with having to enable/disable a couple of times to get the charge pump to activate.
My BOB is dead in the water without it. (unless I set some jumpers - which I don't want to do).

Any ideas.

Sage

« Last Edit: February 19, 2015, 04:24:08 PM by Sage »
Re: Mach4 Printer Port Discussions
« Reply #702 on: February 19, 2015, 04:52:35 PM »
Hey Sage,
 What I do is go into the c drive and copy the entire mach4hobby folder to a usb thumb drive. I try to do this everytime I make a change that works good and then if I make a bad change and can't get it fixed I just swap the entire mach4hobby folder with my backup from the usb thumb drive. Don't know if that would help ya but it works great for me.

Dave

Offline ART

*
  • *
  •  1,702 1,702
  • Tough as soggy paper.
    • View Profile
Re: Mach4 Printer Port Discussions
« Reply #703 on: February 19, 2015, 09:01:10 PM »
Sage:

 Yes, 1.21 over 1.23 is the correct version numbers. If you run the setup or the diags you should have a pulse frequency shown
when you slide the slider it should change. I cant imagine why the driver woudl show a zero count, unless its stuck in memory.. did you
reboot?

Art

Offline Sage

*
  •  365 365
    • View Profile
Re: Mach4 Printer Port Discussions
« Reply #704 on: February 19, 2015, 10:22:19 PM »
Patton:

In this case I was upgrading several versions so backing the whole thing up would not help. Now that I'm messing about with the same version that would be helpful in case of problems. I was more hoping that, all the settings were kept in a file like the XML file for Mach3 and that could be transplanted and be compatible with a newer Mach version. There must e something similar for Mach4. Having to re-configure the whole thing is ridiculous.

Art:
I didn't reboot. I just restarted Mach. Maybe that's my problem. I'll check that out tomorrow.

Sage

Offline ART

*
  • *
  •  1,702 1,702
  • Tough as soggy paper.
    • View Profile
Re: Mach4 Printer Port Discussions
« Reply #705 on: February 19, 2015, 10:40:20 PM »
Sage:

  All the settings are kept in the profile folder in your machine.ini file...

Art

Offline Sage

*
  •  365 365
    • View Profile
Re: Mach4 Printer Port Discussions
« Reply #706 on: February 20, 2015, 09:32:01 AM »
Art:
Re settings: Thanks, I'll transfer that file next time I do an upgrade. In fact maybe I should retrieve the old one from my previous install because it WAS all working.

I figured out that the charge pump wasn't working because I didn't have a frequency value in the "frequency when active" box. Not sure what to put there but 100hz seems to work.

Disturbing that the necessity to toggle the enable / disable button on the main Mach screen is still required to get the charge pump signal to be issued. I thought this would be fixed by now.

BUT I still have issues. I don't see any input signals in Mach (X,Y,Z HOME or E-stop. I have no limits per se, they trigger E-stop I like it that way).

In Darwin each switch works on the individual input signal configuration page LED and if I look at the Darwin parallel port configuration screen the LED's for each signal pin toggles for the home switches and E-stop.
In the Mach config inputs screen I have the Motor home signals pointing at the named signals from Darwin and they are enabled but the Mach diagnostics screen LEDS never toggle. Same for E-stop. I can negate the logic in the Mach config screen for the home switches and the LEDS go off or on in the diagnostics screen but no response to the switches themselves. Negating them in Darwin makes no change on the Mach diagnostics screen.

It's like the Darwin input name assignments aren't being recongnized by Mach.

I probably missed something somewhere. I guess I need to better document my settings once it's all working.


Sage
« Last Edit: February 20, 2015, 09:39:59 AM by Sage »

Offline ART

*
  • *
  •  1,702 1,702
  • Tough as soggy paper.
    • View Profile
Re: Mach4 Printer Port Discussions
« Reply #707 on: February 20, 2015, 10:20:09 AM »
Sage:

 Before you go further.. is your license being recognized? Darwin has no inputs unless licensed..
Check the system info in mach4 to see if the darwein module is being reported as licensed.

I do have a couepl reports of the Charge pump taking an extra press to get it running. Its not doing it here
at the moment, so Im not sure if its my bug or m4's bug. It may be mine. Ill schedule a check to see if
I can find it. I have no error reports on Darwin other than that one at the moment.. Homing etc is all tested
and verified as late as last week..

Art

Offline Sage

*
  •  365 365
    • View Profile
Re: Mach4 Printer Port Discussions
« Reply #708 on: February 20, 2015, 11:05:35 AM »
I presume you mean  Help/about/plugins/Darwin?
It shows enabled and valid.
Or on the Darwin about screen with the picture of Darwin It shows it's licensed (or something that implies that).

In any case I got everything going again by copying the ini file from the backup I made before I upgraded to the new version(s). Not sure if the ini file from an old version (November I think) is compatible but it seems to run. It still would be nice to know what item I missed in the config - for future reference. I'll have to take better pictures of all the screens. I must have missed one.


BTW Art.
I posted on the general Mach discussion about the fact that I really haven't used MAch4 (and probably never will) unless I can get my Shuttle Pro to work. Do you have any plans to write a new plugin for that or should I go looking for another one that will work? I don't think I've seen any yet that work. Operation without one is very cumbersome. Perhaps a comment there would be useful to everyone.

Thanks

Sage


Re: Mach4 Printer Port Discussions
« Reply #709 on: February 28, 2015, 05:55:20 PM »
Can both Mack 3 and Mach 4 drivers be in memory at the same time? Thanks