Gerber system 48

[martin54]

Think I need to select video mode in one of the menu's, never thought about using my phone lol, might try that next time I am up there. I read somewhere that mach3 doesn't like vista (who does) so it is running on a machine with xp pro. The machine is never going to be connected to the net so I'm not bothered about support for xp ending.
Not got a lot of software installed on that machine, was just going to install mach3 & use it purely to drive the router but have ended up putting the cam software on it plus a vector based program for designing. Also got the drivers for my plotter installed so it will drive the plotter as well as the router.

[martin54]

Having tested the machine & got it all working pretty well except for the VFD plugin which I will get round to sorting but doesn't stop me using the machine I thought it was time to tidy things up a bit, I wanted it to be a self contained unit when I started so having made sure everything was working OK it was time to put everything inside the original control box.

Sorted out an old motherboard (pentium 4) Installed Mach3 & deleted pretty much everything else, mounted the motherboard in the old box & connected it all back up only to find it now doesn't work at all. Have run the driver test for mach3 & there doesn't seem to be any pulse signal at all so I am guessing that the PP is defective in some way. Get no movement at all either from the machine or on the screen when I try to move an axis. Mach3 is set up exactly the same way it is on the other computer & will load & reset. If I run the driver test for mach3 it tells me it has successfully taken over the poet but I get no pulse line on the screen.

[martin54]

Progressing slowly as & when I get time, the old control box for the machine now houses the computer, power supplies, drivers etc. The VFD is mounted on one of the machine legs, thought it best not to try & fit this in the control box with the other electronics. Bought an old flat screen monitor which I still need to fit to the side of the machine but once that is done it will be pretty much stand alone. Will do all the design work on another machine & just upload the gcode to it via usb. Only program installed is mach3 keeping everything to a minimum having read that mach3 likes it best that way.
One thing that did confuse me though was that when I tried to cut text it was cutting backwards, quick look at the mach support forum told me I had to reverse which ever axis was cutting the wrong way. I expected to have to reverse both the X & Y axis but only had to reverse one of them. Not sure if I have everything set up right now but it seems to work ok, is it usual to have to reverse just one axis ?