Mach 3 behaving badly?

[Davek0974]

Setup - Manual Bridgeport mill converted to CNC with Mach3, CSMIP-IP/A controller, Servo's on all axes, ballscrews etc.

Todays mess - 30 minute job takes over 3 hours.

Simple job - two setups, total of 5 tool changes, 8mm thick motor mount/adaptor plate for my new drive motor, basically a 250mm circle with 110mm hole in the middle, plus some bolt holes, tabs etc. A nice fun part to play with?

First tool/pass goes well, then the Z gets the command to go home for tool change - this triggers a (soft) limit switch, right on the tool change. Reset pressed, tool changed, Z ref is now wrong, reset, pass runs ok, tool-change time - (soft) limit triggers again, same routine.

Offsets look odd but maybe correct, i haven't figured out the numbers yet - pictures below.

The screen tells me max-z is something like 220mm? A bit tricky as i only have something like 130mm to play with? Surely my Z-Max has to be Zero?

Then i start a run and as soon as it hits the first X/Y G1 line it throws an ePid fault, and again, reset, swear, go indoors and re-cam the part for a single tool in the file and it runs OK ?

Its just winding me up something terrible as I am not 'fiddling' with stuff or editing macros etc, I just went out, booted up and tried to do some work. I have no idea what to fix or what to post up here so other can chime in but boy is it pissing me off.

It also suffers the bug where you get the "Script compile error in M3.m1s" - this seems pretty common on the 'net but again a real PITA.

I'm new to CNC relatively and having to double-check everything so i don't crash the machine is one thing but when it does not do what its told it makes things really uncomfortable ;)

[John S]

If you know you are not going to run off the table then switch the soft limits off. They are a pain in the arse as they have to be reset for every job if X0.0 and Y 0.0 changes
If you have limit switches fitted then you don't need soft limits.

They were only put into Mach to satisfy the people who couldn't or didn't want to fit limit switches but wanted piece of mind.

[Davek0974]

Yeah but no but....

I use them a lot, my stuff is all over the table and I'm often jogging around to get positions etc and run into them a lot. Hitting the limits on my build kills all power to the drives so would not want to do it too often plus it means re-homing etc.

This is a commanded soft limit thats being triggered - seems to be a CS_Labs thing i think - if the code tells it to go somewhere it can't it simply throws an instant "limit switch triggered" error and puts Mach into reset.

Trouble is - WHY is it doing it - it seems it was always the Z axis this time, Z Max, which on my machine should never be more than zero as home is at zero.

I really would not want to run without soft limits IMHO.

[Clive S]

Dave You do realise that soft and hard limits are two different things when jogging around are you hitting the soft or hard limits?

[Davek0974]

Soft, if i hit the hard limits all the power goes off on the drives etc - you can certainly tell when that happens :)

[magicniner]

What version of Mach3 are you running?
3.042.020 or close to it is what seem to be the least buggy,

- Nick

[njhussey]

You found the link before I could send it this morning. Shamefully I've still not rolled mine back, been using the simple zero and just doing one op at a time. Let me know how you get on and if it solves your issues. When the machine has a slack period I'll back up the files and roll it back...

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[Neale]

Thanks, Neil - as ever, asking the question helped me find the answer!

Quick answer is that upgrading to the older version has fixed the problem, as far as I can tell. I've done a few tests, including air cuts of a previous job, and all goes well. Anyway, well enough for me to find a bug or two in my code. If you save the fixed touchplate height in one macro, then it makes sense to use the same variable in the next macro. Fortunately, e-stop saved my bacon and another hole in the bed. I've tweaked the 1024 screen to replace a couple of things in the tool offset area with new buttons that execute my new macros; the first picks up the movable touchplate of the surface of the work in the usual way then goes off to find the relative height of the fixed touchplate and the second is used for subsequent tool changes by setting off the fixed touchplate. Nowt very original but it's quite satisfying to have done it, and I've learnt a fair bit about macros in Mach3 and the need for a short pause after certain operations, for example. All the code uses the native IP/M probing functions rather than G31. I've tested this with tool changes while running real gcode so it seems to work correctly with the M6 macros. Happy to share code if you're interested, on a strict YMMV basis!

[njhussey]

That's good to know, cheers Neale. I'm using Gerry's 2010 screenset so the macros you've done are already in it. Always fancied having a dabble at macros but I'm not a natural coder and am always time poor....

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