stepper motors glitching

[routercnc]

Hi Lee,

Thanks for that. When I said could not get motion, that was only last night when I plugged it into the additional PCI parallel port as a trial. When it is plugged into the main parallel port all steppers move fine, except for the glitching which I think is leading to lost steps.

The glitching has been there from day one (about 1.5 years ago) long before I added the second PCI port card, so I think this is OK, but will remove anyway as part of the trial.

There must be something upsetting the pulse output from the PC. I've got some ideas but as this is a hobby it will have to wait for the next window.

Suggestions welcome !

Thanks
Barry

[FatFreddie]

Hi Barry,

I don't use Mach3 but I'd suspect AVG or possibly the video driver. Installing EMC2 on several machines showed poor latency with inbuilt video drivers so it might be worth sticking in a video card if you have one handy - I had a Matrox lying around which is recommended for EMC2 and it helped considerably.

Mark

[routercnc]

Hi Mark,

The video card idea is worth looking at, hadn't though of that. I bought the MB from a colleague who was into music creation. He wasn't bothered about the video card, and it might even be on-board video. It was over a year since I built this machine so I will check tonight. If it is on-board, or low spec, an upgrade would be worth a try.

I think this latency is the route of my problem, just a matter of finding out the cause. If it is AVG then that would be annoying since I would have to drop internet access on the garage machine, which is quite useful.

The processor was reasonably good, an Athlon XP 2600, and I put in a fair bit of ram. MB was a well known make.

I'll post back if I find out any more, thanks. Other suggestions welcome . . .

[routercnc]

Still haven't checked the video card, but managed to run a few more quick checks last night. Attached is a photo of the oscilloscope display when connected to the parallel port lead, pin 3 (x steps) during trraverse. First photo shows scope with even spaced pulses, second photo shows the glitching of uneven spaced pulses.

I'm also have a video of the steppers running. I will post later, and you can hear the glitching.

Screen shot of DriverTest program, shows all is well.

Also switched off Virus checker, and set it up to trust Mach3. Made no difference.