OK are the spped you running at between 70 and 100 steps a second? if so the problem could be resonance.
Try it with load and see if the the problem is still there.
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OK are the spped you running at between 70 and 100 steps a second? if so the problem could be resonance.
Try it with load and see if the the problem is still there.
So I've finally got my motors running smoothly on the Mach 3 but I've hit yet another problem.
Every so often the motors will stall for no apparent reason. I first thought the lead screws where getting jammed but I've even tried the motors without any load and they still stall.
When the motors stall even if I try to help it to move forward it won't. But the moment I release the jog key and start jogging again it works fine.
Jog at slower speeds causes it to stall less but it does stall. Also when jogging at slow speeds I can hear the motor sometimes hesitate.
See the video or a fast and slow jogging X axis without it being connected.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1wQHubSqFY
P.S> I don't know what's the BBCode to embed YouTube Videos in this forum.
At the moment Mach3 is set to 1000 Steps per mm. The problem is both with and without load.
I've gone through exactly the same process as you Bruce. I have the MDS 542 drives, 3nm motors and PSU's from Zapp
I bought a laptop to use with Mach3, had nightmare issues with missed steps and stalling even while the motors were on the bench at very low speeds. I got in touch with Pminmo who was extremely helpful and got me at least working. Running on the bench was much better, in fact I was pushed to make the motors stall. Putting them on my machine however, I had to run at very low speeds to get smooth motion. I could jog the X maybe 150mm before it would miss or stall, jog again and it would be fine for maybe 500mm before missing or stalling, jog again and it might instantly stall, no set pattern.
In desparation I ordered a SmoothStepper from the states and what a transformation. Before, the best I could get from my Ballscrew X axis was 1000mm/min, now I'm up at 3000mm/Min and it could go faster comfortably but it seems fast enough for me to leave it set at. My rack and pinion Y axis, whose motor turns slowly, would stutter randomly, that is all gone now, smooth in all three axes. Just running Mach3 with the SS attached and no machine, the toolpath display seems smoother running.
I know this doesn't help you solve your problem but this little board has transformed my laptop controlled system and I'd bet it would do the same for you if you cannot cure your problem. At the end of the day Mach3 and Laptops have an uneasy relationship and even if you get yours optimised to the Nth degree, I feel it will always be marginal. Cost me £130 total with all taxes but worth every penny. I know I could buy a S/H desktop for the same money and probably have zero troubles but I don't have the option of using one, I simply HAD to use a laptop because a desktop could not survive for long where it would be living.
Worth thinking about.
Thanks for the comment,
I have been talking to them about distributing the smooth stepper, but held back till it had some in the field and all the bugs had been ironed out.
Bruce, If you decide to go down that route, keep me informed with the results
Quote:
Originally Posted by Smiler
You are set to 1000 steps per mm, but between what linear speeds are you seeing the problem?
Also what resolution are you set to on the driver, are you still set to half step? try changing the resolution?
Quote:
Originally Posted by bruce_miranda
How do I figure out what the linear speed is, as mentioned I'm seeing this both at slow jog (i.e 35%) and full jog.
My resolution is still set at half step i.e. 2
I dont use Mach 3, but if it is set to 1000 steps per mm and you run at 35% of full speed, you need to work back from that.
the motor is set to 400 steps per rev.
If you are set to 35%, what is you max speed set to?
This is what Mach3 is set at 1000 step per mm for the x and y axis at 600mm/min and acc of 200
Anyone with any other help? I'm really getting desperate to get this machine going.
If I lower the Velocity I get no stalling but if you listen carefully every 10 secs or so you will notice a slight motor hesitation noise.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmsZw6C_dm0
Disconnect the direction cable and try again and see if the 10 second noise goes?
do you have access to a scope?
Bruce, read this: http://www.mycncuk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=290
The only problem I'm really facing now is this hesitation once about every 8-9 seconds. At slower velocity the motors do not stall. I've even disconnected the Direction Pulse to see if that helps but nothing helps. I don't have access to a Desktop machine and so am keen to get this laptop working.
Is this problem the same with both axis? IF so it is definately the signals from the laptop.
Have you got anything running in the background on the laptop? close all non essential processes down.
What is the spec of the laptop?
Quote:
Originally Posted by bruce_miranda
Bruce, I see you've asked the question in the Mach3 Yahoo group and they are giving the same answer I gave you earlier. Laptops have serious issues with MACH3. I got reasonable results by doing the optimization dance and running RMClock and demoting my laptop to Win2000 but you are running on a knife edge all the time.Quote:
Originally Posted by bruce_miranda
I had the exact same problem as you. After all my tweaking, I still had this annoying little twitch every few seconds, like a little "tick" and I had to run my machine at a crazy 500mm/min to avoid missed steps and stalls. IMO, the problem lies solely in the laptop. If it is an Intel CPU, disable SmartStep or whatever it is called in the BIOS, put Win2000 on it set up as a Standard PC, No desktop backgrounds etc, turn off all power management and install RMClock, set it to "MAXIMAL PERFORMANCE" (keep an eye on your temp levels!) and make sure the "Run HLT" box in management is ticked. You might be lucky and have a usable sytem at that point, I did but it was touch and go and my CPU temps were getting to meltdown point. You could also install a free program called SpeedFan to automatically control your laptops fans to keep things cool, not perfect but it works.
Seriously Bruce, in my honest opinion you have two options, desktop or something to take the strain off the laptops parallel port, i.e. a SmoothStepper.
My Dell C640 laptop before the SmoothStepper had to be stripped to the bones to run Mach3 with any smoothness and then only slowly. Now it is back to XP Pro, my CAD/CAM software can run at the same time as Mach3 and my CPU doesn't get above 47 degrees.
I'll probably get shot down for this but that's my opinion, having had almost identical problems to you and having to solve them myself. Take it for what it's worth. Good luck anyway.
I can now confirm that this is definately a problem with the laptop (i know i know - you've been saying this all along).
How have I confirmed this? You know the regular 'tick' that happens every 8-9 seconds is so regular that if I jog for about 4 secs then don't jog for 2 seconds and then jog again I get the tick at the 3rd sec i.e. similar timing to jogging continuously.
This tick does not vanish even with different microstep values.
Have a look in your BIOS for SpeedStep if it is an Intel CPU, that is what is causing the interupt most likely. If you can disable it then do so but be aware that your CPU might default to the lowest speed (mine dropped to 1.2Ghz from 2.4) once you boot back into windows.Quote:
Originally Posted by bruce_miranda
Can you go with a desktop Bruce or are you stuck with the laptop like me?
I have to use one because a desktop would be dead in a week or so in the damp atmosphere we live in, at least I can bring the laptop and control enclosure indoors after using my machine.
Hope you get it sorted soon.
Even with SpeedStep Disabled and the the Computer configured as a Standard PC I get this annoying tick once every 8-9 seconds.
A laptop is also what I can only use because the mill is installed in the garage.
I know very little about commercial CNC software, but is this running under Windows? Windows will occasionally go off and do something else for a while suspending all other programs.
Under XP you can latch on to a regular interrupt set at 1000 per second but you can't mess with the timer settings.
Went and installed a clean version to Windows 2000. But the darn 8-9 sec hesitation is still there. This is with the Intel SpeedStep disabled in the BIOS. So there is something in the laptop that is doing something every 8-9 secs. I've tried all the 3 parallel port modes too, no difference. I've forced the parallel port to use IRQ7 and still nothing.
Now the key thing for me is to decide if I should invest in the SmoothStepper or a mini-ITX computer.
If you look at the CNCZone site and do a search on ITX, you will see it is just as much a minefield as the situation with laptops. Some have no problems, some just don't work. MAybe it's being unfair to say it is as bad a the laptop situation but it is not all plain sailing if you go that route. The thing to do is to ask for recommended boards, ones in actual daily use and go for that.
If you were local to me, i'd bring my smoothstepper over for you to try, it would confirm once and for all where the problem lies and a fix for it.
I've now gone and done it. Bought myself a SmoothStepper!
You guys are not going to believe this. I managed to get the machine working. Now wait for the fun part.
1. Its a laptop.
2. It doesn't have a parallel port on it.
3. I'm using a docking station.
4. I've loaded Windows XP on it.
5. I've not made ANY changes to the set-up, its still working on ACPI mode.
6. All services and start-ups are running etc.
7. Not loaded the RM Clock utility
8. Not done any optimization at all.
AND IT STILL WORKS FINE. Motors are running smoothly and faster than the machine can handle and there is no hesitation at all.
Sod's law that I got my SmoothStepper today too. Infact I rebuilt this laptop to use with the SmoothStepper and previously I'd tried this same laptop with all the 'recommended' changes and my motors didn't even move!
The only difference is that I'm now using the Development version of Mach3 instead of the lock-down version because that is what SmoothStepper needs.
I'll try this set-up for a few days and if things work then I may have a Brand New SmoothStepper for sale in the UK :-)
:), maybe worth asking the guys over at Artsoft what the diffrences could be with both software versions so we can pin point what the problem was ?
Still think it's the laptop. I'm running the exact same version as Bruce and without the Smoothstepper, I get the ten-second-tick. This is on a Dell C640 2.4GHz P4 Moblile with 1 gig of ram.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lee Roberts
I'm curious as to whether it is the same laptop Bruce is using or if it is a different one, I know he said he had several. Either way, I'd keep the Smoothstepper with a laptop.
What make/model of laptop are you using Bruce?
Bruce, can you just confirm why you cant have a full blow PC setup in the garage?
The laptop that has the inbuilt parallel port is the Dell D800 and that has a P4 M 1.7Ghz CPU - that has this 10 sec tick still on it even with Win2K.
The laptop that now works is an HP nc4400 but that has a Centrino Dual Core 2.0GHz CPU. This is the one I have no problems with.
The reason I don't want a full blown set-up is the garage is
.a. my garage is not heated and gets quite damp, that not good for the PC
.b. its not attached to the house and was recently broken into.
The guys at Artsoft too can't explain why things are working now when previously they didn't.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lee Roberts
The motor connections you have mentioned are a bit confusing but corrected. I use these motors myself and have had them running in both parallel and series modes. The problem may lie with the stepper driver units. Try using finner steps, 8 or 16 microstep to see if it improves things.
There was no problem with the Drivers or the Motors. The problems were first in the fact that my parallel port was not outputting 5V DC. Once I resolved that using the USB power then it was a case of the laptop misbehaving. Now I have everything running fine on a laptop without needed to tweak it in any way at all.
I have the drivers set to 10 microsteps and that made tuning calculations on my Metric machine very easy. Now I have the machine set to run at the highest Velocity possible and things are still running absolutely fine. I know I could use the SmoothStepper and get even more speed but I consider that unnecessary for my applicable and so would rather sell the SmoothStepper off Brand new.
What PC are you driving it with? is it your normal desktop machine or one dedicated to running mach3 or simular.
I had a simular problem where nomatter how i connected the motor i could not stop it jumping around, it turnd out to be somthing with the isa paralell port in that the pulses were not all of the same time and thus made the motor jump in all directions.
I have lernt never to test stepper motors with a random machine running Mach3.
Roger