Hi,

I have mach3 tied to a bladerunner system (trying) to control my plasma machine. I set the STEP pins in the Pins and Ports menu, jog the machine for about 30 seconds, and then (usually) the x axis stops working. Go back to the Pins and ports menu > motor outputs and the step pin for whatever motor is not working (usually the x) is changed to a random number. In most cases it is 0, but at times all of the motors change and the machine stops responding.

The machine is a Dell Optiplex 780 connected to the bladerunner via LPT1 and onboard serial.  I was running on windows xp 32 bit, sp3, I tried switching to Win 7, the problem persisted.

Any ideas?

I would take down all your xml/Mach3 settings, then copy your old XML file somewhere else and remake it.

Wes

I'll try it tomorrow. The xml file is provided by the manufacturer of the plasma system. I made the file read only, and nothing changed. In fact, the settings in the file do not match the settings in mach 3 for the pins, which I thought was odd. What is being put into the fields when it messes up does not match what is in the xml file either though.

I contacted the manufacturer of the system, and the tech guy said it was the first time in 6000 machines he has heard of the problem. It's very frustrating.

Installed on a new computer, the only piece of hardware that was the same was the monitor and the bladerunner, still having the same problem. I can disconnect the parallel and serial cables from the controller and MACH 3 still changes the pins on its own, so I am pretty sure it doesn't have anything to do with the hardware.

I rebuilt the XML file, no luck. I have tried both EPP and ECP for the parallel settings in the BIOS, still having the issue.

You MAY want to have your License file looked at it may be corrupted.

(;-) TP

who would I send it to? Online tech support is not working at the moment...

I could rule that out by installing a fresh copy of mach3 and then just leaving it in demo mode and seeing if the pins change.

You were correct I think. I tried a third computer today and left it in demo mode. It worked without changing the pins for over 30 minutes. As soon as I installed the license file, within 1 minute the pins were changing. I removed the license file, and it is working again. Thank you for the help, I will get a new license from the plasma dealer and see if that helps.