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Author Topic: Need Help! Probe Suddenly Quit Working  (Read 3293 times)

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Offline Vogavt

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Need Help! Probe Suddenly Quit Working
« on: March 12, 2015, 01:20:16 AM »
Needless to say it was working before.

When I connect the probe wiring to the work piece or the bit in the spindle using an alligator clip I now get a random blink as if the probe has touched the work piece. (Used to stay on during testing until I disconnected it)

I've not made any changes to the system.
I've checked the wiring with a multimeter for continuity from the wiring right up to the Gecko 540's pin 11.
I tried adding a 1k resistor, a 68k resistor, 150 ohm and 220 ohm resistors to no avail.

I even tried to emulate and still got no response in Mach.

I'm wondering if the Gecko's gone bad. Everything else seems to be okay.

I do have another parallel port with a BOB and may trying different Ports & Pins for it tomorrow just to see.

I've loaded other screensets and that didn't work either.

Like I said, I've changed no wiring or settings, just tested it before probing down (as I always do) and discovered that today it didn't want to play ball.

Any insight for other items to check would be appreciated.

Offline Vogavt

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Re: Need Help! Probe Suddenly Quit Working
« Reply #1 on: March 12, 2015, 05:29:31 PM »
Report Back:

I moved the wire to the second parallel port and changed the Ports & Pins to reflect such. (from Port 1, Pin 11 to Port 2 Pin 11).

Now the Probe LED flickers even more but still at random intervals, sometimes fast intervals and sometimes not. What's even worse is it happens regardless of whether the probe is touching the material or not!

I uninstalled Mach3, used a registry cleaner to uninstall any traces in the registry (with the exception of 3 registry keys).
Reinstalled Mach3 v062 and used the plain jane Mach3.xml file and only changed the Pins & Ports for the Probe wire. Also tried both Port 1, Pin 11 & Port 2 Pin 11.

Acts exactly the same.
Changed the debounce to 3000.

I'm at a loss here as I've become very dependent upon the probing functionality and don't know what else to check.

Only thing I could do is reinstall the Windows Operating System but that's a bit drastic just yet.
« Last Edit: March 12, 2015, 05:35:23 PM by Vogavt »

Offline ger21

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Re: Need Help! Probe Suddenly Quit Working
« Reply #2 on: March 12, 2015, 05:55:05 PM »
Sounds like you have a lot of noise triggering the probe.
Debounce does not have any effect on the probe input, because it would cause a delay when probing.

You might want to try adding a capacitor across the probe input.
Gerry

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Offline Vogavt

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Re: Need Help! Probe Suddenly Quit Working
« Reply #3 on: March 12, 2015, 06:55:05 PM »
I thought about noise too but didn't know how to fix that problem. I have shielded wires to the steppers and home/limit switches to help.
Oddly it was working as I said then out of the blue it's stopped.

I get more flickering on PP2 than PP1 with or without the wire attached.

I don't have many caps laying around so where would I safely start on the numbers?
And when you say "across the probe input" are you talking about in series or parallel?

I certainly can't afford to let any magic smoke out.

Vogavt

Offline BR549

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Re: Need Help! Probe Suddenly Quit Working
« Reply #4 on: March 12, 2015, 08:03:54 PM »
First you need to eliminate the probe itself. Just attach 2 new wires to the probe inputs. PUT the wires together/apart (depends on setup). Does it work right? IF yes the problem is ON the probe side of things . Bad switch, broken wire , etc

Just a thought, (;-) TP

Offline Vogavt

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Re: Need Help! Probe Suddenly Quit Working
« Reply #5 on: March 12, 2015, 08:12:54 PM »
I shut the machine down and used a multimeter to check continuity from the probe tip through to the pin on the Gecko. No problem with that single wiring.

"Two" new wires? I have only checked one wire!

There is another wire that's grounded to the machine itself... maybe just maybe.......

Offline Vogavt

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Re: Need Help! Probe Suddenly Quit Working
« Reply #6 on: March 20, 2015, 10:53:00 AM »
Sorry for the late response. (Dealing with aging mother's health)

 Yep. Simple wiring issue.