Installing Mach 3 is driving me mad!

[tonygagey]

So, finally got machine built , a 3 axis Gantry router using 4 motors forth motor as " A " axis slaved to y axis ,bought licence for Mach3 and started to install, all went well till tried ref home. only the motor on the y axis turned , the slaved A axis does not, a quick E stop saved any damage, try to fix this has had me pulling my hair out !
At one stage i had motors going in wrong direction; one side of gantry moving forward while the opposite side went back! and a constant E stop condition!
I Know am at the stage were z homes but does not retract from home switch and only the Y axis turns !????! HELP.

[Robin Hewitt]

one side of gantry moving forward while the opposite side went back!

Exciting. The forces start at infinity. This is usually bad

[Clive S]

So, finally got machine built , a 3 axis Gantry router using 4 motors forth motor as " A " axis slaved to y axis ,bought licence for Mach3 and started to install, all went well till tried ref home. only the motor on the y axis turned , the slaved A axis does not, a quick E stop saved any damage, try to fix this has had me pulling my hair out !
At one stage i had motors going in wrong direction; one side of gantry moving forward while the opposite side went back! and a constant E stop condition!


I Know am at the stage were z homes but does not retract from home switch and only the Y axis turns !????! HELP.

Ok first have you checked in general config that (home slaved with master) is UNCHECKED
and Angular properties is also unchecked. ..Clive

[Ger21]

And that all the A axis settings match the Y axis.

Note that in some cases, you may need to modify the homing script to use RefCombination().

[tonygagey]

Clive S
Angular properties was checked , i unchecked them.
home slaved with master was unchecked and I checked that and it all seems to work! will try again in morning to confirm but so far so good.....

[Clive S]

Clive S
Angular properties was checked , i unchecked them.
home slaved with master was unchecked and I checked that and it all seems to work! will try again in morning to confirm but so far so good.....

OK and take note of what Gerry has to say. The motor tuning, Acc and steps etc has to be exactly the same on both the slaved motors. ..Clive

[Ger21]

Does the A axis have it's own home switch, or do you only have one on the Y axis? (Sounds like just the Y axis?)

[tonygagey]

Just the y, but have been advised that I needone on A to prevent racking.

[Ger21]

With only one switch, all you need to do is check the "home slave with master" box.
You won't get any racking with only one switch, but you also will not be able to auto square the gantry when homing.

[Clive S]

Just the y, but have been advised that I needone on A to prevent racking.

I would suggest you really do need two switches then you can adjust one of them to correct any slight squaring issue you might have. The two switches need to be on separate inputs to Mach. ..Clive