I have 8nstalled Mach3 on a Toshiba laptop running Windpws7. Install went smoothly but I can’t change coordinates. Using the tab function, I cannot advance the numbers in X Y or Z.  The midi control does seem to work, but at a ver6 slow speed. Suggestions?
Thank you,
Jim Widmann

Hi Jim
do you have any motors enabled in Config/Ports and Pins/ Motor Outputs?.

If you don't have a motor enabled the DRO will not change. Don't worry you can enable a motor but not hook it up,
Mach doesn't know that, and it can't tell, its not a feedback system.

When you first turn Mach on the federate is set very low. Try MDIing:
F100     and then try a few MDI instructions.

Craig

Thanks Craig,
I do have the motors enabled. Still no movement on the DRO. Also I set the feed rate to f100 and the DRO still moved very slowly: about .03 per second.

Any other ideas on this?
Thanks,
Jim

Hi,
are you using a parallel port or an external controller?

Craig

I’m using the parallel port. I have two computers that work ok using the parallel port, and two that I use smooth stepper on. But in either case the dro moves.

Hi,
laptops are notorious for not running parallel ports well. Although I would still expect the DRO's to work.

Could it be the laptop is just plain faulty. Do you have any other software you could run on it as a comparison?

Craig

Craig,
Yeah, I know laptops are kind of a hit or miss proposition when using the parallel port. But I have had luck with two of them, and my current project sort of requires a portable computer.
Yes, I was able to run a similar motion control software. It’s very weird that the DRO doesn’t move. I have re-installed it twice and that didn’t work.
Should I just forget it?

Hi,
I've run out of ideas......I didn't have that many to start with

Mach3 does run on laptops but maybe just not your one?

Craig

Run Drivertest exe, and post the results.
Disregard any mention of System Excellent.

What you are looking for is a steady pulse rate that's close to the kernel speed. If the Kernel Speed is 25Khz, you should see a pulse rate close to 25000.

Ok I ran drivertest and here are the results:

On the graph the time between pulses seems to be about 55
CPU MHZ 1496
Shortest time. 57.659
Long3st time   3345.98

Version:  6.1
PCI 1 second low.  3579545
PCI 1 second HI.   1496000000
Average.     152.83
Longest.        105133.0

“Pulsing too fast”

I’m gonna guess I should set the kernel speed to someth8ng like 60.

Thank you!
Jim