Hi All,
I am two weeks new into this CNC stuff and I need a little help from my new friends. My motors in all three axes are missing steps as I am moving along at 10 in/min. I hear random chirps or step skips as I move along; sorry if I am not being clear with the proper vernacular. And once in a while I get a burp and the motor stops turning as the counter on the Mach3 screen continues to go and then I’m off position by as much as ¼ inch. I discounted the motors so there is no load on them and I tuned and tuned and tuned with no avail. I changed the pulse widths all the way up to +15.
Here is some background information on my setup:
I am running MachX (2 on 3) on an IBM laptop with all the recommendations called out in the Art’s optimization file. When I run the driver test I see pure perfection at 25, 35, 45 . . . 100kHz. BTW, I am plugged-in, not running off the battery; however I did try both setups.
I have a quality printer cable 3ft long running to my Gecko’s G201 with no BOB. I have three AC/DC switcher power supplies made by GlobTec RT-3S150-24 each at 24V 6A. I am running little steppers made by Superior Electric Type MO62-CS-513 DCV 1.65, 4.7 amps. 200 steps/rev. I built a Vicor AC 120V /DC 120V To DC/DC 5V with a 660 mF holdup capacitor to feed power to the Gecko’s opto’s and LPT ground. Speaking of ground, I have tried many different configurations of grounding, the outputs of the power supplies, the Geckos, but not Gecko common to AC ground; I hear that could be costly.
Do you have any ideas guys and gals? Gals as in girls not a unit of acceleration in the centimeter-gram-second system equal to 1 cm per second per second. Sorry the geek in my just spilled out.
Rick