[KCbluenotes]

I have a CRP2448 machine that has been working well for over a year. I have had a huge learning curve and CRP has been extremely patient with me. I had never machined before, did not know CAD/CAM, and never did any CNC work prior to buying this machine. Yes this sounds a bit crazy but I was determined to make guitars without having a high speed router bit 3 inches from my face and complete covered with exotic wood dust. I make electric solid bodied bass guitars in my spare time and I thoroughly love doing this.

With the exception of having things too loose or too tight, (due to my lack of experience) the board had performed to my expectations. I recently have had a local machinist help me which gave me a lot of reassurance that my machine is really a great one and I should stick with it.

I have a current problem though. Has anyone had a problem with the emergency mode activating when hitting any key board key or during homing right after the y-axis backs off the proximity limit switch? I was hoping to do a lot of machining during my holiday break but now I'm completely down.

I have tried resetting the Smoothstepper, making sure wiring is not crossing, ensured all connections are good, etc. I'm wondering if this is a problem with the Smoothstepper, the Gecko 540, or maybe I need to reload Mach3 (not my favorite thing to do). Any advise is GREATLY appreciated.

Thanks so much.

[awerby]

What happens if you leave the keyboard alone while it's doing those things? Does everything work okay then? If this happens during the homing routine and not otherwise, try touching off against the stock and zeroing that way (remembering to move over a distance equal to the radius of the tool before zeroing). It's handy to use automatic homing, but it's not absolutely essential.

[ger21]

I believe that there is a noise filter setting in the Smoothstepper config. Have you tried adjusting it?

[KCbluenotes]

The homing I'm doing is the xy home. It triggers the emergency active mode once it gets to the y-axis and backs off the proximity limit switch. I haven't gotten to the z axis homing yet. I don't touch the keys during this step, just hit the autohome.

[KCbluenotes]

Gerry, Thanks for the information. Where is the configuration for the Smoothstepper located on Mach3?

[KCbluenotes]

Ok I found the configuration. See the attached image. Do you have any suggestions for the settings?

[ger21]

Sorry, I've never used one and don't really know what other people use for settings.

[LeeWay]

Here is a thread over on the mach 3 Forum that may help.
https://www.machsupport.com/forum/in...?topic=21695.0

[KCbluenotes]

Thanks LeeWay,

I have a pm into Hood to see if he has some suggestions. In the thread he suggests pulling off a cap/resistor. I'm reluctant to pull off a cap/resistor without making sure that is what it really is. My smoothstepper has an ethernet cable, not a USB so it may be configured differently. I did try changing my estop setting to 1.43 but this didn't change anything.

KC

[LeeWay]

Are you using a wireless keyboard?
One typically should not use those, but I don't always practice what I preach either. At least not in this case. If so, try a hard wire keyboard. Even a different keyboard just to rule things out.

[KCbluenotes]

Good idea. I use a wired keyboard already so it must not be that.

[LeeWay]

Has this just recently started happening?
If so, mach 3 saves an XML file every time you start it up.
It is located in the mach 3 folder. Pick one from when it was running okay. Copy and paste it to the Mach 3 main folder.Then change the file type to xml. Make sure you change the name a little too. Windows will complain to you that you ain't right in the head, but disregard that.
Then load that XML and try it out.
That will eliminate the issue being a corrupt XML file. It happens, but is pretty rare.

[KCbluenotes]

Lee,

You are a genius. I had backed up all of my files onto an external drive recently. This is the last time the machine worked right that I have used it since we were busy with Christmas activities. I guess something happened during the backup that corrupted the Mach3 folder's CRP file. I had on old CRP file for Mach3 on the external drive and replaced it with the one that was on the current C drive. It works!!! Yeah I'm so happy.

Thank you so very very much. I'll post this on the Mach3 forums as well.

KC

[LeeWay]

No genius. Just been around Mach quite a bit. Glad that sorted it out for you.
Show off some of those guitars too.

[KCbluenotes]

I'll have a few guitars on the web site probably in March. I'll post them here as well. Thanks again.