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Author Topic: Greetings Mach3 Users-- I am about to tear all of my hair out.  (Read 7763 times)

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Offline KBFX

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Greetings Mach3 Users-- I am about to tear all of my hair out.
« on: December 13, 2008, 08:34:33 AM »
I am new to CNC. I bought a brand new taig mill, mach3, Meshcam.. yadda yadda.

Well, option one- using the old laptop i have here failed. SO- i went out and bought a brand new PC desktop with enough processor and ram to run three of these. (in theory).

Well, im still having the same issues with missing steps.. and its not even a couple steps over the duration of the program.. its missing a lot, causing it to be way off. SO- i figured because i bought a machine that was a turnkey, and it was only pulling about 10 IPM id upgrade to a gecko G540 and all the problems will be solved.

BUZZER--- wrong.. still having same issues. I have tried a lot of different adjustments and the only thing left is the following--

now these are all just theorys...

#1-- could the fact that my machine has an onboard video card be causing this? I mean, really? even if i have the tool path screen turned off and i am on the settings screen? Sounds like a very small wound on a very large animal..

#2-- could their be a problem with the way Meshcam is writing files?

#3-- could there be a problem with Mach3? I ask this because it seems my driver test screen is way different than the one in the manual-- (mine says mach2)


I dont know what else to do- I have now put about 4k into this project and i still have a VERY unreliable machine. Im wasting time... im wasting wax.... when this machine messed up last week-- it broke tw brand new 35.00 end mills...

I need help.

Offline Hood

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Re: Greetings Mach3 Users-- I am about to tear all of my hair out.
« Reply #1 on: December 13, 2008, 09:06:16 AM »
OK first thing is Yes it could well be your onboard graphics, what does the driver test look like? Oh and because you are saying it shows Mach2 in the driver test that tells me it is not the latest version of Mach3 so might be worth upgrading to that, doubt it will solve your problem but cant harm.
 Sounds like your motors are not tuned correctly or the pulse width is not wide enough, I think you will need that at 5. You might also want to try changing the active state of the pulse on the motor setup page (Config menu, Ports and Pins.
If tnone of that helps then please attach your xml.

Hood

Offline KBFX

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Re: Greetings Mach3 Users-- I am about to tear all of my hair out.
« Reply #2 on: December 13, 2008, 09:09:51 AM »
Its only a month old, why wouldnt it be the latest version? Ill look into that...

also- i am very new-- so i dont know the software well enough to know what some things are... but pulse width, the gentleman at gecko told me 2 for that... and as far as IPMS, i have he x and y set to 50 ad z to 40... accellerations are at 4 on xy and 2 for z.

Offline KBFX

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Re: Greetings Mach3 Users-- I am about to tear all of my hair out.
« Reply #3 on: December 13, 2008, 09:17:08 AM »
says i have 2.63

Offline Hood

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Re: Greetings Mach3 Users-- I am about to tear all of my hair out.
« Reply #4 on: December 13, 2008, 09:17:50 AM »
Mach has had a lot of updates done in the last month or two, mainly to do with the way the VB is interfaced  but some other things as well although not likely to help your problem.
 Ok so what does the driver test look like? Is it a nice flat line? Does it have a few small spikes? Does it have large spikes? etc etc.

 Yes I heard Gecko says 2 for pulse width but there were a few here recently that had the G540 and needed 5 if I remember correctly, no harm in trying :) Also some of the earlier releases of Mach wouldnt keep the pulse width settings so that is a reason to upgrade to the lockdown.

Hood

Offline KBFX

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Re: Greetings Mach3 Users-- I am about to tear all of my hair out.
« Reply #5 on: December 13, 2008, 09:20:36 AM »
i am DLing mach again.. i thought i had the lockdown?

Ill try jumping up to 5... im going through the manual as i do this... I am just going to dump the current version and reinstall.

Any suggestions on a video card or will any one do? there is one for 80.00 at best buy i was just going to go grab...

Keith

Offline Hood

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Re: Greetings Mach3 Users-- I am about to tear all of my hair out.
« Reply #6 on: December 13, 2008, 09:22:23 AM »
You still not saying what the driver test looks like, that will give a big clue.
Hood

Offline KBFX

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Re: Greetings Mach3 Users-- I am about to tear all of my hair out.
« Reply #7 on: December 13, 2008, 09:24:21 AM »
oh, sorry-- no it was a flat line, with tiney little blurbs once and a while.. i am going to run it again after the reinstall..

Offline Hood

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Re: Greetings Mach3 Users-- I am about to tear all of my hair out.
« Reply #8 on: December 13, 2008, 09:26:36 AM »
OK so that seems like your graphics card is not an issue, I would have expected to see large variations if that was causing interuptions.
Hood

Offline KBFX

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Re: Greetings Mach3 Users-- I am about to tear all of my hair out.
« Reply #9 on: December 13, 2008, 09:47:46 AM »
Okay, i have the new driver test now-- and it says system excellent.. Every once and a while, a small blip... but for the most part--- tiny blips.... and i changed the parameter to 35k as well.. got the same..