Monte, sent you a pm with all my (or most of it anyway) settings.  Reread your posts and it seems like you have covered pretty much everything.   Scratching my head and trying to remember problems I have had.  At one point I had a short in one of the motor cables.  Did not happen all the time, but every now and then my motors would stutter and suddenly reverse course.  Took me a while to sort that one out.

Another time I had electrical interference from a small shop vac.  Resulted in motors suddenly taking off at a right angle to the programmed path.  That was fun also.

Good Luck

Bob@BobsShop

They'll all sync if I hit the cursor keys the right way.

Sorry - I'm not clear on this: If you run all three (or at least two) motors (on the bench) at the SAME RATE and at the SAME TIME - something like g1 x10000 y10000, are the interference patterns perfectly in synch or not?

Quote from: montejw on March 02, 2008, 11:40:39 PM

They'll all sync if I hit the cursor keys the right way.

Sorry - I'm not clear on this: If you run all three (or at least two) motors (on the bench) at the SAME RATE and at the SAME TIME - something like g1 x10000 y10000, are the interference patterns perfectly in synch or not?

I didn't try that.  But when running them with the cursor key independently they seemed to have the same rhythm to the interference.

I started out thinking all this was something to do with Mach3 and my computer, but I'm thinking it something to do with my controller and the mill.

Monte

do you have a scope? if so have a look at the step pulse and see if its smooth or jumping like your motors, that will tell you whether the problem is from Port in to Mach or out to the hardware.
Hood

do you have a scope? if so have a look at the step pulse and see if its smooth or jumping like your motors, that will tell you whether the problem is from Port in to Mach or out to the hardware.
Hood

No scope.

Monte

I started out thinking all this was something to do with Mach3 and my computer, but I'm thinking it something to do with my controller and the mill.

I'd be surprised if it has anything to do with your mill seeing as how it does it when the motors are sitting on your bench - course I may be wrong  .

Seriously, I'd try to establish if they all do it and if they do, do they do it in perfect sync or not.

HELLO MONTE

           i am going to take a shot at this for you.first unclock your cpu.you can wind it back later.next take that motor that you had laying on the table in the video.leave it loose on the table like the video.
           now go to ports and pins and set that motor as spindle.then go to motor tuning and set your spindle steps to make 1 revolution.now play with your speeds ,accell,and pulse width -
           see if you can get it to run smooth and sweet .if you do get it smooth you will see what the true pulse width of your system is .

bill
           

Hi, Monte

How many wires on your stepper motors, 4, 5, 6, or 8.

The sound your stepper is making sounds like one with one coil backwards

4 wire hook up without much problem 1 coil A,  1 coil B, Changing ether a or b wires around just change direction.

If it's 4 wire stepper disregard following.

5 wire steppers won't work bi-poler.

6 wire motors will work full coil  ct not used or 1/2 coils only, ct and 1/2 half of coil for A, B, if you get one 1/2 coil wrong side of Center tap, It will sound funny.

8 wire motors, If you get a coil backwards, It will sound funny.

Mark the end of your stepper and Single step in one dir, See if it's back stepping on one of the step's.

Hope this Helps, Chip

I think some of the suggestions on here are superb, that's why it is such a good forum.

I'm going to throw my hat in the ring.

The problem is the computer !! I don't know what you mean when you say the machine is over running etc etc.

Any chance of borrowing another computer, loading Mach3 and plugging in the LPT! socket !!. You might as well start eliminating something, because all you are doing at the moment is altering things and getting nowhere.

Change the computer. If the problem is still with us, at least then, we know where to look.

I'm going with global warming.