I’ll bet they are external drivers.
Yes, pictures inside the control box would help
I’ll bet they are external drivers.
Yes, pictures inside the control box would help
So I can’t find the dialog for how to do this in Mach3. I need to do some research, but I’m out of time for this evening. I’ll report back when I have another update.
Thanks all!!
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Just to re-state it- if you have your steppers wired in parallel as Jono notes, moving any one stepper in a pair will induce current in the other. (Even if the system is off)
That will have motion artifacts, so we should keep that in mind
I made 2 more for you to try. The first one is from Estlcam. It’s a rectangle with a feed rate of 3000mm/min.
Mach3rect.tap.zip (498 Bytes)
The second is from MillMage. I did some reading and found that Mach3 and LinuxCNC use the same gcode. It’s a 4in X 6in rectange with a feed rate of 1800mm/min.
Mach3-4by6Rec.tap.zip (537 Bytes)
They’re wired in series, but I think your point still stands. I’m aware of back current created by steppers acting as generators when manually turned, I just never had 2 connected together before, so I hadn’t observed the effect in person. This still doesn’t explain why the X-axis acts all funky, but the Y-axis does not. I may have something to do with the X-axis being wired incorrectly, as I noted a couple comments back? Who knows?!
Thanks! I’ll give them a try, but I don’t think the slow motion is from your files.
My jog rates are suddenly super slow as well.
Would changing the stepper DIPs to the 1A setting have affected the travel rates that drastically?
I have no idea. Sorry
Another plus for the Jackpot. No DIP switches to worry about.
Pictures of the control box are in the first post.
I think the plugs you mean are the ones in the steppers which are some sort of jst, possibly jst-xh, since the other end of those are just screw terminals into the drivers I would make any swaps. You can get the pins out of a JST plug just with a pin to bend the plastic locking tabs up out of the way.
If you flipped the wrong dip switches you might have changed the steps on the driver. The on/off direction is often not clearly enough labelled.
I mean the plugs that are inline, like this:
These cables are made up of a couple extenders between the driver and stepper. I believe they are JSTs. That sounds familiar from my RC flying days. They look just like the connectors on servos.
I’m fairly sure I did not (flip the wrong DIP), unless my driver isn’t the one we think it is. It looks exactly like the diagram, and I checked everything 3 times before changing to the pattern posted by Larry (S4-ON, S5-OFF, S6-ON).
This happens because your steppers are in series. Any break in the ciruit is a complete open
Changing the switches #4,5,6 just affects the power. Switches #1,2,3 only affects the micro steps, they will affect the speed
What happens?
So what do you think is causing it to run so slowly then? The only change has been the DIPs, other than reassembling and tensioning the belts. All axes are slow (including Z) on both jogs and when running a programmed path via gcode (tap).
First Congratulations you have it moving!
Most likely it is moving slow running the gcode Britt sent you. The gcode is in mm/minute. I bet the default units in Mach3 is set in Imperial right now.
To check this you should find a Tab along the top in Mach3 called Setting’s or something like that.
Click or open that tab, it will open another screen. You are looking for 2 things here.
First should be labeled ‘Set Unit’ this is the one you set Metric or Imperial.
second should be labeled ‘Steps per Unit’ You set this to the what you set your driver micostep driver setting.
If your Driver setting are at Switch #1off, #2 on,#3 on this gives you a microstep of 2, which is 400 pulses per revolution. I assume that your CNC has 16 tooth stepper pulleys so you would divide 400 pulses by 16 teeth. The belt has about 1 teeth per 2 mm. So 400/16/2 gives you 12.5 steps per mm.
The more common setting used on the CNC’s here are the steppers being set to 32 microsteps. For this you will set the Driver Microstep switches as follows:
#1 off, #2 off, #3 off.
Now you have 32 microsteps times 200 steps per revolution equals 6400 pulses per revolution. 6400 /16 tooth pulley/2 ‘tooth per 2mm’ =200 steps per mm.
Sum it up: Set the driver microsteps to 32
Check Mach3 setting’s and check the Unit and the Steps per unit
And have fun!
Thanks! Only with the help of you wonderful folks!
Unfortunately, I don’t think this is the case. It’s running slow, even with jog functions, when there is no gcode file loaded, or running. Also, I’ve already set the units to mm. I haven’t found the setting for steps per unit yet, but I’ll keep looking… I need to confirm what pulley size/teeth I have, but I need to pull a belt back off for that, which is a pain. I wish I had thought to check that before.
As you can see from this (kinda blurry) image I took before I changed the settings, the DIPs are set to 400 pulses/rev right now.
IF you have standard V1 Motors and Pullies I believe that should be set to 200.
Now I need to go research and see if my memory is correct. The more days that pass the less reliable that is
I don’t think anything about this machine is ‘standard’ lol
I’d do a motion test. Even if it is Slooooooow.
Install a sharp bit (a steep v-carve bit works well for this.).
Put down some tape in a corner, and also tape that covers 200mm +x, 200mm +x and +y, and 200mm +y. (Four tape regions)
Move to the 0,0 xy corner, lower Z to make a pinpoint dot. Raise Z to clear the work surface.
Command motion in X to 200mm. If the motion is wildly wrong (1/2 or 1/3 or 1/4) then we fix steps/mm before proceeding. If not, Lower the Z to make another tiny dot. Measure the distance from 0,0 to 200,0. Report that distance. Repeat for the other two locations.
We want to see how mis-calibrated your steps/mm are to decide what to do to bring the machine into something resembling proper setup.