Made a right balls up

Hi guys

I should post more often but I've not had much opportunity to use my machine until very recently, and since last week I have been playing,

Alas, I have a Denford mill. A micromill I think, not entirely sure to be honest, and it runs on Mach 3, v 1.8 something. Anyway, I thought it would be an idea to try for updates, so using my other pc I downloaded v3.something, chucked it on a flash drive and installed it on Machine pc..

Unfortunately, due to my incompetence, I overwrote the previous version, and now I am left with a machine that I can't use because the newer version tells me dll files are missing, and other stuff, so now it doesn't actually do anything.

Please help.:hopelessness:

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Originally Posted by Crazy L

Hi guys

I should post more often but I've not had much opportunity to use my machine until very recently, and since last week I have been playing,

Alas, I have a Denford mill. A micromill I think, not entirely sure to be honest, and it runs on Mach 3, v 1.8 something. Anyway, I thought it would be an idea to try for updates, so using my other pc I downloaded v3.something, chucked it on a flash drive and installed it on Machine pc..

Unfortunately, due to my incompetence, I overwrote the previous version, and now I am left with a machine that I can't use because the newer version tells me dll files are missing, and other stuff, so now it doesn't actually do anything.

Please help.:hopelessness:

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Oops.

Oh well. Screenshots would be useful, but ultimately if Mach isn't installing the correct DLLs theres an issue. First off I'd try reinstalling after a reboot (if its trying to overwrite DLLs that are currently in use, it won't go well). Then I'd try downloading a few previous versions, it might be that the installer you picked is crap. You might have a restore point to go back to the old version which is worth a shot. After that I'd start thinking about trying a completely fresh Windows install.

Unless the version of Mach3 you are using has specific faults which are addressed in later versions, and the later version doesn't have additional faults that are more intrusive (Most after the company changed hands do) there is no good reason to update as after Art Fennerty sold the company software development went to RatShit.
:D

Huh. Good to know :)

Is Mach4 worthwhile?

My little 4-axis benchtop CNC mill runs Mach3 and works flawlessly, I can CAD/CAM a part and know it will come out spot on when I run the code, but I'm going with a DDSCVx.x stand alone controller for a larger mill conversion that's a WIP in my workshop.
From my point of view they took so long bullshitting vapourware before they could knock out a barely functional version of Mach4 that the world has moved on and for hobby machines reasonably priced stand alone controllers are the way forward, options are now available from under £100, just add drivers, PSUs etc. but no PC of any flavour is required, and that's how it should be with a modern professionally engineered CNC controller.

Hey guys

I went to fire up the mill PC today, and sweet FA. Nowt. it won't start, at all. My reckoning is that the hard drive is buggered. I only assume this as I put in an old drive I had kicking about from years ago (nothing dodgy on it by the way*) and it booted from that drive, so bios is ok. I swapped back over and nothing again. Monitor didn't even come on.

So maybe the issue yesterday was from a fucked hard drive. I have a spare tower in the loft, but it has vista on it so will have to partition the drive and put XP on there, then pop in the PCI card. Then, I will install the version of Mach I downloaded and see how I get on. Won't be today though, but I will keep you posted.

Magicniner, do you have a link/ or links for stand alone controllers I could peruse please?




*unless you like music and pictures of fetish models

After I had a hard drive failure on my CNC machine and had to rebuild and reload software, which included getting licence details from Mach3 and others, I decided that the best next step was to backup all my Mach3 and other CNC program directories to my Home Cloud which is a 500Gb mirrored RAID in a NAS box. My CNC machine has the Internet Gateway disabled so it only access my home network.

In deciding a backup strategy, you need to determine what you cannot replace, what you can repurchase or download and what you can afford to lose. Also you have to consider the time costs to rebuild.

There is also another way to lower the chances of failure, and that is to have a RAID mirror as your main hard drive(s) in the CNC machine. I have a raid card in a redundant PC and that may be going into my CNC machine at the next HD failure.

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Originally Posted by Crazy L

Magicniner, do you have a link/ or links for stand alone controllers I could peruse please?

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Just Google DDCSV CNC Controller (I got the letters wrong!)

Thanks Magicniner, had a quick nosey the other day and they do look cool.

Back to Topic though, I have a new (old tower with a working hard drive now and have just installed the pci card, and the version of mach that I downloaded. However, it would appear I am still missing he pci card driver, I know not what it is called etc so feel a bit stuck.

Hi,

Can you let me know what chip is on the PCI parallel port board and I will see if I can root out a driver for you. if it is a NetMos chip I will need the 4 digit chip which is something like 9825 or so. Let me warn you that these can be a bugger to install.

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Originally Posted by cropwell

Hi,

Can you let me know what chip is on the PCI parallel port board and I will see if I can root out a driver for you. if it is a NetMos chip I will need the 4 digit chip which is something like 9825 or so. Let me warn you that these can be a bugger to install.

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Thanks for your help Cropwell. I had a look at the number, it is: 98651V. does this mean anything to you? because it means bugger all to me :thumsup:

It looks like a Moschip board - you should find a driver here http://www.network-drivers.com/companies/1614.htm If that is no use, I will need more details of the hardware.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by cropwell

It looks like a Moschip board - you should find a driver here http://www.network-drivers.com/companies/1614.htm If that is no use, I will need more details of the hardware.

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Thanks Cropwell, will have a look through and let you know how I get on. Ta.

Right, I found a driver and downloaded it. It came with a thing called driverupdater or something. Alas, I couldn't install the driver as driverupdater wanted the internet and my mill pc isnt connected so it simply would not install. I got the driver from elsewhere, and again, it came with driverupdater, and as such, wouldnt install without the internet. Bum

Is this the chip on your printer port board ?Attachment 25754

If so your printer driver is here https://www.dropbox.com/sh/fjwgmfaue...sFt6cGSta?dl=0 You will have to copy the files to a memory stick and run the Moschip setup program form the stick.

Hi Cropwell.

I'm afraid not. the chip has no logo on it, just the aforementioned number and some other numbers. Such as: CH350L, 202205221, CH352PA5@1012, and 0413.

This is just for a driver, hahaha, before I even make a vague attempt at settings etc :emptiness:

Those stand alone controllers are looking really good about now, lol.

Try this site http://www.johnmears.co.uk/9865IV_AA_Driver.htm

ah, thanks for that. The pci card in the picture at the top of that website page looks exactly like the one that I have. Just downloaded the driver, will have a go at installing it tomorrow. Thanks again.

Ok, files don't want to install as the install wizard has gone on holiday, so I need to install them manually. I put the .sys file in the drivers file of the system32 directory, and I dont know where to go from there as it's proper pc nerd stuff.

Do I need to copy and paste install info into my registry?

I'm only asking as with .sys file in place, it still says there is no driver.

Hi all. thanks to Cropwell again for finding me the pci driver. I asked a computery friend last night who told me where to put stuff, and now, the pci driver is installed, and according to device manager, it's working properly.

So....on to my next hurdle, getting mach to talk to my machine.

I have set some soft keys, for xyz etc, but they still dont work. There is clearly something I am missing in the settings department. Would anyone be able to help please?

On your keyboard, the left and right arrows should jog the X axis up and down arrows for the Y and Page Up and Page Down for the Z.
Provided you have the right pins settings in Mach3.

One thing you may need to do with a parallel port card is check the port settings in Windows device manager and make sure that Mach3 has the same settings for the port.

I did set them as such as that was how it was on the old computer, so I will check pin settings again. Many thanks.

The saga continues chaps. It's stumping the hell out of me. I've not been near the machine recently as been busy with bike riding, rc car racing, and diy rubbish, but a rainy saturday and some spare time sees me out there trying to fathom the mysteries.