Tweakie--
I am not sure what caused the problem, although I have read a few posts in other forums from people who turned on their computers and loaded Mach3 after a long hiatus only to find that the program had "changed" items in their Mach3 configuration. The cause of this odd behavior might never be found, but now at least I know what to do, thanks. My axes configurations were miles off. I have a fairly large table, and when I asked Mach3 to move the X axis 50 millimeters so I could calibrate it, the cutter head shot across the table over 700 mm and crashed before I could hit the kill button. So I started out moving it by 5s and 10s, believe it or not, and finally got it calibrated. Just cut a obne-hour job while experiencing a ton of anxiety, but all went well.
Just curious, but do the motor settings in Mach3 affect how hot the my NEMA 23 motors get after running for a couple of hours? I'm cutting at 4000 mm/minute, but I'm sure the machine and motors could handle 6000. How hot is too hot?
Also, for CNC questions not directly related to Mach3, could you recommend a forum that would be suitable for someone at my stage of the game.
Thanks again!
--Bob