Mach 3 behaving badly?

[Davek0974]

After hitting the problem today with both G28 and G53 moves, I switched to single block and stepped it, it triggered at the M6 command.

Next i pulled the M6macros out and it worked ok (to that point), a coffee and a sit-down with the macro open showed the problem. It was connected with the screen-set and the M6Start macro, a variable and DRO called "Clearance Plane" - this is used in the 2010 screen-set tool-change routines.

But as I cannot use them on the Bridgeport and do not need them due to the fixed length tooling, the already edited M6Start macro was still using the values and trying to send the Z to a position beyond home when triggered - the system said no and triggered the soft limit.

This is why the code always ran fine as a single-tool job - the first line in the M6Start skips the routine if the current tool = selected tool so the dodgy code was never hit :)

I have now edited the M6Start to remove all references to clearance planes, offsets etc and just issue a straight G53 G0 Z0 style home move.

The code i was struggling with has now been air-cut 6 times with 100% success.

Thanks for all the tips.

[Ger21]

I've just set up all the auto tool change stuff in your screenset and it wasn't working, just sat there waiting for me to press start again without doing the move to tool change position and then the probing....just been looking into why and just come across this so will see what version of Mach I'm using.

Neil...

Neil, email me if your having issues with the screenset and I should be able to find out what's causing your issues.

[Neale]

Looks like I've stumbled into the same issue. I'm running (I think) .066 with a CSMIO-IP/M. I've been writing some tool height/tool change macros plus doing a bit of screen editing. I wanted an excuse to have a fiddle with the code and this looked like a nice little project. I freely acknowledge that a lot of it is based on various sources found on the web for tool-height setting. Basic Z height setting works fine - double-touch and everything, and based on the CS-Labs M31 macro. Under ideal conditions, repeatable to within a microstep or two even with some random rapids thrown in between measurements. On to "initial tool setting" - sets Z height in usual way, then touches off fixed touchpad to establish a reference. After a few problems involving work/machine coordinate settings, this seems pretty solid. Then the tool-change height setting, which just uses the fixed touchplate slotted in between m6start and m6end. I'm now seeing the soft limits issue, plus ePid errors.

Sounds like first thing to try is drop back to .028 - but I can't find anywhere to download it? Is there a standard place to go for this?

Thanks,

Edit - found it eventually. Hadn't thought of looking in Mach3 ftp download area before!