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Author Topic: how to config motors with G100  (Read 34393 times)

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Offline Monty

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Re: how to config motors with G100
« Reply #10 on: June 01, 2007, 12:40:40 PM »
I thought I had it isolated, but the same problem can occur in the default setup for home and limits also. At first I thought it might be noise, but the problem is not intermittent. Once it starts it is repeatable. The only way to "fix" it is to do a cold boot of the whole works, mach, windows and Grex. Then it will work. It's hard to say what brings the problem on, as I am going in and out of mach while trying to configure the shuttle pro. It still won't recognize incremental jog, cycle, single step, or jog% up or jog % down.

Attached is my xml. I'm off to town to get something I can fix, hardware...

Monty

Offline Chaoticone

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Re: how to config motors with G100
« Reply #11 on: June 01, 2007, 09:28:33 PM »
Sorry Monty, I just got in. I'm not familiar with it enough yet to say for sure but I did find some differences in our set ups. I have attached a few screen shots, I hope they help.

Brett
« Last Edit: June 01, 2007, 09:30:31 PM by Chaoticone »
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Offline Monty

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Re: how to config motors with G100
« Reply #12 on: June 01, 2007, 10:32:06 PM »
No problem Brett, I just got back in from shopping anyway. I had a few bits and pieces to get for the mill. I'll take a look at the config tommorow. Maybe the answer is in there somewhere. Thanks  :)

The bridgeport boss mill I am working on was originally a boss mill retrofitted with an AH-HA box. Converted it over to use Mach3 and a Grex with the AH-HA stepper cards. The stock motors were fine before, but can't keep up with the increased capabilites of Mach3 and the G100. The thing is much faster, but now the motors are the weak link. Think I'm going to upgrade to new steppers. I'll post some pics over in the machines area when I get a chance.

By the way, your installation guide for the Grex is great! I wish that I had it a week ago. I didn't see any boo boo's in there anywhere. It was certainly a more direct route than I took.

Funny thing, I looked up your location on Google Earth. Not too far from where I grew up. My dad worked for IP and we lived on a tree nursery between Florence and Blenheim.

Small world ;D

Monty

Offline Chaoticone

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Re: how to config motors with G100
« Reply #13 on: June 01, 2007, 10:55:10 PM »
I hope you get it sorted Monty. I will have more time to work on the Manual after the work shop. Yeap, small world. I just went to an airshow Sunday in florence.

Brett
;D If you could see the things I have in my head, you would be laughing too. ;D

My guard dog is not what you need to worry about!

Offline Monty

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Re: how to config motors with G100
« Reply #14 on: June 01, 2007, 11:02:53 PM »
One thing I noticed after taking a look at the motor outputs is that my pins are all the same. Yours are not. I never had to do anything in motor outputs with my setup, they just worked right from the start. I just assumed that the G100 plug in took care of that. This machine has never been set up as a printer port machine. Prior to the G100 it used another computer and a card made by AH-HA that was in the ISA slot.

The mill jogs and works fine, just has a problem with homing. I think that tommorow I will try to configure it the way I want it and reboot the whole mess to see if that works. The problem only seems to appear when I close mach after making a change to something that requires restarting it. When I restart Mach without rebooting windows or the g100 the homing goes all to hell. The other thing I noticed is that you are working in negative machine coordinates. Mine works fine when I leave it that way. The problem (I thought) was when I tried to change the homing direction and get the machine coordinates to be positive (my preference). So the one thing I haven't tried is to configure it the way I want it and cold boot the system. I'll also play with the Dir active low or high.

Monty

Offline Chaoticone

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Re: how to config motors with G100
« Reply #15 on: June 02, 2007, 08:17:18 AM »
Monty, try this. Disable your limits in ports and pins and see if that helps the Ref all Home routine. If it does, you could use soft limits I think.

Brett
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Offline Monty

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Re: how to config motors with G100
« Reply #16 on: June 05, 2007, 08:01:15 PM »
Brett,

Well, all the things we discussed have failed to improve the situation. I thought that changing the settings for step and dir pins in the config menu had fixed the problems, but alas it did not.

I replaced the limit switches with brand new honeywell microswitches. They have a distinct make and break that are at different points. The originals had a single make/break location. I thought that maybe some bounce in the switch was causing the problem.

After hooking up the new switches, and turning the machine on, everything worked. It homed just fine TWICE! in a row. I thought OK now I've got it licked. Dry ran some code. Tried to home it. It froze up on the Y switch without backing off. The screen did not show any error, but the diagnostics screen showed the limit was tripped/home switch was tripped. So I put it in overide backed off and tried agiain. Still didn't work.

So I turned off the X++ and Y++ limits. Still didn't work. Then I turned off both X-- and Y--. Tried to home it again. It went right through the home switch without stopping.

There is some flat out flaky behavior here that can't all be my hardware. I've tried new switches, double checked the sheild grounding, played with settings till I'm blue in the face. When I first start the machine, it will work. Then it just gets plain weird. Sometimes it will do like it should and the Z will home, then the Y, then the X. Sometimes the Z will home, then the X and Y will both take off at the same time until one of them hits a home switch and then everything stops no error, nothing. If I hit Estop then hit it again it will give an error and say limit switch triggered. Sometimes all three will take off at once. Sometimes the Z and the Y take off at the same time.

I also found that once I triggered the digital outputs for flood and mist, the only thing that would shut them off is to reboot.

soft limits do not work

I'm out of ideas. ???

Monty

Offline Chaoticone

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Re: how to config motors with G100
« Reply #17 on: June 05, 2007, 08:36:44 PM »
Monty, this all very weird. I have worked the spindle and coolant relays without trouble as well. I will do some testing tomorrow.

Brett
;D If you could see the things I have in my head, you would be laughing too. ;D

My guard dog is not what you need to worry about!

Offline Chaoticone

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Re: how to config motors with G100
« Reply #18 on: June 05, 2007, 10:25:45 PM »
Monty,
     Have you checked the voltage across the switches with them open and closed. This might give some clues. Hook the meter to one that is giving trouble and try to home and note all the readings. Only two I hope. Voltage, not continuity.

Brett   
;D If you could see the things I have in my head, you would be laughing too. ;D

My guard dog is not what you need to worry about!

Offline Monty

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Re: how to config motors with G100
« Reply #19 on: June 05, 2007, 11:35:46 PM »
Brett,

haven't tried that. I will tommorow. My meter is not a scope type so not sure that it will tell me much even if that is where the problem is. To find it I would probably have to have a voltage vs time curve to see if the switch made a clean break. The chance of having 4 bad switches, two of which are brand new out of the box is pretty small.

Even if the switch was bad, why would the home routine do different things randomly? Why does it home in sequence, z, then y, then x when I first start the machine. Then after I run some code and the next time I try to home the routine is totally different. The z and y may move at the same time, or the z may home first then the x and y both start moving at the same time. I wish I could see the code that makes up the home routine. If that checks out then it is in the firm ware. A switch cannot cause this behavior. If it were a switch, it would fail on the same switch, the same way every time. It doesn't. The only switch that has not given me any problem is the Z. I did not have to change the homing direction or reverse that axis. That is the one constant in this mess. I may try to reverse the Z tommorow and force it to home to the bottom. If the Z freaks out after that then the problem is in the software, or firmware.

If that doesn't work, I'm considering a clean sheet start over. Start from scratch, use your installation guide step by step, fresh mach the works. If the problem persists after that I don't know what else to do. I will send you my current .xml tommorow.

Maybe I am missing something. :-\

Monty