Motion Control drivers and motors

[Smiler]

:), 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.

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_miranda]

:), 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 ?

The guys at Artsoft too can't explain why things are working now when previously they didn't.

[Lee Roberts]

Bruce, can you just confirm why you cant have a full blow PC setup in the garage?

[bruce_miranda]

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.

[captainresonator]

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.

[bruce_miranda]

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.

[cncezee]

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