Tweaky: did you have to add time before to the pulse widths?

Hi Art,

Yes, in Mach3 I am using 2uS for the step pulses.

Tweakie.

Hi guys:

  Here is version 1.09 of Darwin. The driver is the same, it will report 1.08 (lower number), you dont need to replace it.
The dll's version is the upper version reported, and it should read 1.09. So all you need to do is overwrite the plugin and the dll and your good to test..

The plugin is also 1.09. This plugin turns on the step stretching. ( The code was written in I just hadnt turned it on). I have
no way for you to set it as yet, so I set it to 2 extra uSecs on the step pulse only.

  Unfortunately, this version has a few changes that made a reset necessary. You will have to remap all the signals in Mach4.
They will sill have a checkmark, you just need to map them to "Darwin" since "parallel0" is no longer a name in the system,
all mapping should now be done to the Darwin device. Just do a remap of any signal and youll see what I mean.

  If this doesnt fix roughness its OK, what I need to know is , Is it Smoother than it was..? If so Ill turn on a setting you can change to make it match your system. If indeed pulse width is the culprit, this should at very least make it better.

 I need to discuss with Brian a solution for the homing a slave axis direction, Im askign M4 what direction to go so perhaps
the plugin should reverse any slave in homing ( though that seems arbitrary..what if the axis isnt reversed..)..

 Anyway, Ill take that up on monday and correct as necessary..

Thx
Art

  If this doesnt fix roughness its OK, what I need to know is , Is it Smoother than it was..? If so Ill turn on a setting you can change to make it match your system. If indeed pulse width is the culprit, this should at very least make it better.

No I don't think it is any different in my case.  Perhaps my computer hardware combination that happily runs Mach3 is not up to the mark for Mach4.

I had Mach3 set to 3us pulses.  Only because I set it to that way back.  Set it to zero and it made no difference to smoothness in Mach3.

Mach4 again. Funny thing is sometimes an axis will run smooth and then next time rough.  Sounds like it has sand in the linear bearings.

I have gone to ver. 1900 and set everything to metric.  That seems OK now.

Spending way too much time trying to get a handle on homing with a slaved axis.  Need to stop doing that for now.  Can't make any consistent sense of it.

Greolt

Greg:

 So in version 1900 in metric it sounds smooth? Is that the upshot?
That's an important thing to know I think, it would tel me that something in your CPU
is being dragged down by M4 in terms of having enough time to properly function.

 Video seems implicated on at least one system Is this in wxMach or in MachGUI? Ive
also heard of differences there...
Thx for the testing, Ill find out about the homing on Monday and fix up whatever I need to.
I suspect its still early to say exactly what goes on in such troubles, I need more experiences and
numbers to tell me. A grinding in the bearings sound usually means the stream is very uneven,
so if your waterfall is fine ( and everyones seems to be ) then Im really thinking M4's use of video
or something is creating a bottleneck.
  Unfortunately for me, external hardware doesnt need an unlagged system ,it'd be hard to tell when
overloaded, Darwin, like M3 needs a system without the cpu being bogged down. Im hoping we
can find that bottleneck. By the way, has anyone looked at CPU load during a noisy run compared
to a smooth one?
   Yours is the third time Ive heard switching to metric makes a difference. Darwin knows nothing
of number systems it works solely on steps.. but VIDEO on the other hand works in inches or mm's...
so Im thinking perhaps of some unknown effect there.. but I could be wrong.

Anyway, thank you for the response, it adds to the knowledge base.   , testing continues..

Art

Tweaky:

   I promised to keep you appraised on my laser project. I now have an arduino
programmed to give me a good tickle at 1us with the ability to send any pulse or
number of pulses from 3us to 190us at any frequency up to 5khz in 1000 different
power levels.

   Just waiting now on some final components before making a laser control panel
which will accept step signals from the x,y and a axis in order to be able to engrave
with 1000 discrete power levels while M4 ( or mach3) does a simple grid raster or spiral
or whatever rastering shape one wishes. The idea is to remove mach's control of the laser
and rather have the control panel monitor position and pulse its output based on uploaded
photos or other criteria. So the steps signals will simply be paralleled to the "MasterBlaster"
control panel , which is wireless, and will operate in concert with Mach3, Mach3 ( or any
step/direction controller). This will allow on the fly pulse to pulse variation in power
based on photographic input prior to any raster scan. Thats the plan anyway.

  Im hoping such a panel could be used on any laser and with any cnc system to allow
3d engraving in a new way. We'll see how reality intrudes on my plans.

Art
 

Sounds great Art, I particularly like the idea of 1000 discrete power levels.

I look forward to following your progress on this and maybe even following in your footsteps although I keep saying 'the Impact / Laser engraving plugin is going to take a lot to better'. 


Tweakie.

Hi guys

 this version changes only the plugin, so you only need to copy in the plugin file.

 This should correct homing of a slave as to its direction. This also adds changeable registers. In the
Operator/Regfile youll find a Darwin entry. There you can specify a min freq and max freq for Frequency based spindles,
and you can select if a PWM spindle is in effect .. this replaces the even/odd signal number selection.

 You can also specify a step pulse width from 0 - 5us in width.

Steve is fixing a diags bug where signals dont show up till toggled. This will probably be finxed in next mach release.

Thx
Art

Greg:

 So in version 1900 in metric it sounds smooth? Is that the upshot?
That's an important thing to know I think, it would tel me that something in your CPU
is being dragged down by M4 in terms of having enough time to properly function.

Sorry, my poor explanation.

Metric weirdness seems fixed but smoothness is not discernibly different.

Greolt

Ahhh.. OK, good to know.

 Im not sure why the smoothness issues occur, wether its computer related or some setting. My system
is silky smooth, but then Im using servo's, they tend to be forgiving.. On the other hand my lathe is stepper and
seems to run quite smooth as well, which agian makes me think its some setting or the cpu.

  The registers now available will allow you to try 5us step width ( which is really about 7us in size..), that
may help... Let me know if it does anything for the quality of your motion.. Ill give some thought as
to some test I may be able to devise to help us figure out why it would be rough..

Art

Hi Art,

The addition of the changeable registers is nice and much better to select Freq. / PWM rather than the odd / even signal.
My system seems to run better with a 2uS step pulse although it is difficult to be certain – one thing for sure is that anything >2uS causes me step problems.

Just out of curiosity, in the future, will we have any commands to operate in a similar manner to the M11P1 / M10P1 ?

Tweakie.