[Flatline's Up!]

Ok, Got my mill last week.
Got a quatech PC parallel card in hopes it'd connect w/my laptop.
Called tech support after initial no-joy.
Spoke w/David (I think?) who walked me thru the wire hookups (duh).
Still no joy.
Running thru Mach Loader on Diagnostic Screen, under Output Signal Current State, Enable 1 led is red. (read thats bad in one of the manual sections)

Any pointers/suggestions?

[metalworkz]

Hi,
I think it is OK that the Enable 1 red led is on, as mine is on in Mach3 also. Are any of the green leds on under Port 1 pins current state on? There should be some of them lit up, and there should be a Pulse Frequency reading also. Have you tried the Driver Test application in the Mach3 folder? It will show you if Mach3 has control of the machine.
Regards,
Wes

[Flatline's Up!]

Pic of M3 Diag:


EDIT: Now pic is basically the same as above, but with the exception that under Input Signals Current State:
M1Home, M2Home, M3Home are all yellow. All other led's are blank.

pic of Driver Test:




any and all help is greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Britt

[metalworkz]

Hi Britt,
The driver test appears to have a lot of variations but at least it shows that Mach3 is controlling the system. You may be able to improve that by changing your computers configuration or removing unneeded applications etc. The diagnostics screen seems to be indicating that the 3 home switches are all active. If this is not the case they can be reconfigured in the Ports & Pins section under the Active Low section; they may need to be checked or unchecked accordingly so they give an accurate display of the home switches. Have you tried to reference any of the axis in the diagnostics page?
You can find some excellent videos for troubleshooting etc. on the Artsoft web site the will probably help you a lot in getting everything set up correct.
My Y axis switch is broke so I have disabled the home swtch for the Y in able to use the machine until I get the switch replaced, hopefully sometime soon!
I would recommend you download the videos from Artsoft as they are very informative and helpful.
Regards,
Wes

[Legion99999]

ugggh that driver test is horrible britt. I really think you'd do yourself a favor by connecting to a dedicated pc

[Flatline's Up!]

I had thought that if I were running the Syil X3 profile that it would at least jog.

Is that test screen bad enought to keep the machine from moving at all?

I hear you on the dedicated PC Legion, it's just a pita that it wasn't known prior to ordering everything and taking it into account when I bought a laptop with the expectation of running this exact machine. $800 down the tubes, and another $400 or so to spend on another computer.

[metalworkz]

Do you have any movement on any of the axis? If not and if it seems like there is no power to the motors you may need to take the cover off the control box and check to make sure there are no disconnected wires inside.
Mine had no movement on any of the axis and upon inspection I found several wires disconnected. Once I got them connected then things started moving and axis movement is not a problem except for a reversed X axis which is easily corrected. Now I need to replace my Y-axis home switch and get my spindle contol under control.
Regards,
Wes

[Flatline's Up!]

Wes, that sounds like my next step. I'm getting no movement at all.
I was hoping for a little movement, then attack the wave form problem.

Thanks for the assist.

SYIL America: it sure would be nice if there were a step by step on everything you need to do to make one of these work. (and maybe a troubleshooting section for things like "check for loose connections" ).
I honestly suggest getting someone that knows zero about CNC machine setup and walking them thru the process, and use that experience to write the manual.

[syil]

We should do the manual for every customers.we just preapre it,and in future machine will have the instruction paper,also,the online manual will be avaliable too.
any more questions please let me konw or email to SYIL america.
Your sincerely~
xushuo
Syil.com

[Flatline's Up!]

Richard (@SyilAmerica) made my table move! (ok, it's a simple thing maybe, but it's a big step from zero movement).
He walked me thru a few things and we made it go. It's not done and making chips yet, but it moves and leaves me hope for the future in making a messy shop floor

I'll write up the laptop/pc card interface that I used to possibly help others once I get it all up and fine tuned and humming along.

[SyilAmerica]

Any of the printer to PCMCIA cards "should" work well. The only thing you have to consider is that since the PCMCIA card is not on a standard bus, the hex address assigned to the port is going to be non-standard. It's not hard to change in Mach what your hex address is, but you need to know where to find your address for that port. Hint---It can be found in the device manager.

[syil]

ok,good news.enjoy our machine~~