[zeeflyboy]

I was scratching my head wondering why people were talking about the nut.... lol

Yes - to be precise it would be a pulley that locks onto the flats of the spindle neck. I had envisioned a two part piece that clamps over the spindle neck flats with the nut already fitted, then the pulley would slide over that assembly and lock into place. It was also going to be HTD3 belt, not a flat friction belt.

I put the project on hold when I realised for now I could just spin by hand and further down the line I may get the 1.5k-12k rpm spindle anyway.

[NickB00]

HI Guys, hope you are all doing well.
I finally got my X4-800L last week and although its a bit smaller than I imagined, it looks like a good machine!
I downloaded Mach 3 and got everything up and running and did my first engraving, so it seems to work ok.
After more playing around, I have noticed that the limit switches on the diagnostics page light up the boxes when they are individually pressed,
however they do not actually stop the motors when being driven. I know that Mach 3 has been setup specifically for this machine from Omio
so why is it not working? The check boxes are ticked on homing& Limits page and input signals page (sorry cannot remember its real name)
so they should be working?

I had to loosen the collet on the Z axis motor shaft to rewind the machine co-ordinate for this axis to zero,as the motor kept spinning when the Z axis hit the limit switch (so it must have been slipping on the shaft) and the co-ordinate had reached around 760 or so, it is supposed to be zero at the switch. I know I tightened the collet on the shaft but it must have not been real tight, or is it supposed to be this way for safety??

I also did a 'go to home' and all axes went to their limit switches position and stopped, so the switches are working, but not when being driven?
confused.

cheers
Nick

[Mmpie]

Have you got soft limits enabled in Mach 3?

If they're switched off it ignores the switches. And if they're switched on it never reaches the switches.

I don't think the switches themselves are set up to act as a hard limit.


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[dharmic]

Have they changed recently, or are there only switches at the left, back and top of xyz travels, respectively? If there's only those three then they are for homing the machine which ~should~ work if you press "ref all axes", by default the tall skinny button to the left of the four axis lines on the main page of Mach 3.

They don't act as limit switches, though - the machine will happily charge on through them and keep trying to push through the end of travel.

[NickB00]

Do you mean the Soft Limits button on the main screen or in the setup tables pages?
I will need to check this, but I would have thought that this was done already in Mach 3 as it is setup by Omio?
Nick[

QUOTE=Mmpie;2189308]Have you got soft limits enabled in Mach 3?

If they're switched off it ignores the switches. And if they're switched on it never reaches the switches.

I don't think the switches themselves are set up to act as a hard limit.



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[Mmpie]

Yeah on the main screen, will have a green outline if they're on. I don't know if they're in by default or not but you can switch them on and off as you wish.


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[NickB00]

Yes there are only 3 switches, so you are saying they are for homing only, sort of makes sense.
I would have thought that they would act as limit switches though?
Nick

Have they changed recently, or are there only switches at the left, back and top of xyz travels, respectively? If there's only those three then they are for homing the machine which ~should~ work if you press "ref all axes", by default the tall skinny button to the left of the four axis lines on the main page of Mach 3.

They don't act as limit switches, though - the machine will happily charge on through them and keep trying to push through the end of travel.

[NickB00]

I think what you guys are saying is starting to make sense.
The 3 limit switches are only there to home on, but if the soft limits button is on, then the axes will never reach their full travel.
Is this right?

Is there a way to set the Machine Co-ordinates to zero when its in the home position?
cheers
Nick

[zeeflyboy]

I think what you guys are saying is starting to make sense.
The 3 limit switches are only there to home on, but if the soft limits button is on, then the axes will never reach their full travel.
Is this right?

Is there a way to set the Machine Co-ordinates to zero when its in the home position?
cheers
Nick

When you home it should then set machine zero at the same time. Soft limits will then prevent the machine from inadvertently trying to travel beyond the available travel from there... that is assuming that a)the soft limits are set correctly, b)the machine is homed correctly, and c)that the stepper motors don’t skip any steps and lose position.

[Mmpie]

I think what you guys are saying is starting to make sense.
The 3 limit switches are only there to home on, but if the soft limits button is on, then the axes will never reach their full travel.
Is this right?

Is there a way to set the Machine Co-ordinates to zero when its in the home position?
cheers
Nick

Yes that's right, soft limits will prevent over travel on the OMIO in its default set up.

There are two coordinate systems, machine coordinates (g53) and work coordinates (g54, 55, 56 etc). Your machine coordinates are the machines actual location relative to the home position, when you click ref all home on start up the machine will hit the switches and know that it is at home, the machine will be in its X0 Y0 Z0 position.

Work coordinates are where you set up your work piece, so you move X, Y and Z to the reference point for your work piece and click zero x/y/z that is setting the zero point for the job, so the machine knows where the work is within it's working envelope in reference to the machine home point.

The default coordinates you will see on your screen are the g54 work coordinate system, unless you either click 'machine coords' button they will display the machines actual position, or you change to one of the different work coordinate systems (g55, g56 and so on).


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[NickB00]

Gotcha, thanks for that!

When you home it should then set machine zero at the same time. Soft limits will then prevent the machine from inadvertently trying to travel beyond the available travel from there... that is assuming that a)the soft limits are set correctly, b)the machine is homed correctly, and c)that the stepper motors don’t skip any steps and lose position.

[NickB00]

Thanks. I have now officially passed home positions #101.
Got everything working now and have started some Mach 3 wizard machining on wood. These Omios are marvellous!
cheers
Nick

Yes that's right, soft limits will prevent over travel on the OMIO in its default set up.

There are two coordinate systems, machine coordinates (g53) and work coordinates (g54, 55, 56 etc). Your machine coordinates are the machines actual location relative to the home position, when you click ref all home on start up the machine will hit the switches and know that it is at home, the machine will be in its X0 Y0 Z0 position.

Work coordinates are where you set up your work piece, so you move X, Y and Z to the reference point for your work piece and click zero x/y/z that is setting the zero point for the job, so the machine knows where the work is within it's working envelope in reference to the machine home point.

The default coordinates you will see on your screen are the g54 work coordinate system, unless you either click 'machine coords' button they will display the machines actual position, or you change to one of the different work coordinate systems (g55, g56 and so on).


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[NickB00]

With the Omio Supplied Mach 3 program, already setup for our particular machines, the quality of the Mach 3 screen on a monitor is second rate.
I can barely read some of the writing on the buttons etc. I have tried different screen resolutions and even different monitors but the results are the same.
Have any of you had similar problems, or been able to fix this?
Nick

[Mmpie]

Nick the OMIO version of Mach3 is just preset with all the values like motor steps, velocity and acceleration rates etc etc

The program itself is plain old Mach3, which is as old as it looks and optimised to run on windows XP age machines. I have a cheap and nasty PC and monitor running it which has a screen resolution comparable to a game boy colour, it looks a little blocky and old school but it does the job and I can see everything fine.

I was running it on a modern laptop before that which had a resolution a bit above 1080p, can't remember what it was exactly, and it still looked crap but I don't remember it being difficult to see anything so you should be ok. If you're on windows 10 I think there's an option now to upscale programs which might help.


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[NickB00]

I emailed Omio about the crappy Mach 3 screen and they said it should be good on a 1024 x 768 screen which I tried but made no difference.
I am running Windows 7 on an old emachine laptop which is a wide screen so I plugged in an old monitor for XP computers and made no difference.
No matter what I do I get a crappy looking screen. Oh well, I think..
cheers

Nick the OMIO version of Mach3 is just preset with all the values like motor steps, velocity and acceleration rates etc etc

The program itself is plain old Mach3, which is as old as it looks and optimised to run on windows XP age machines. I have a cheap and nasty PC and monitor running it which has a screen resolution comparable to a game boy colour, it looks a little blocky and old school but it does the job and I can see everything fine.

I was running it on a modern laptop before that which had a resolution a bit above 1080p, can't remember what it was exactly, and it still looked crap but I don't remember it being difficult to see anything so you should be ok. If you're on windows 10 I think there's an option now to upscale programs which might help.


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[Sterob]

Is your monitor set to its native Resolution and Refresh rate?

Steve

[NickB00]

Hi Steve,
Yeah tried that and all other resolutions. The Mach 3 screen is long and narrow and even on a big monitor its average quality.
Bit of a pain but doable.
thanks..

Is your monitor set to its native Resolution and Refresh rate?

Steve

[Sterob]

Worth posting a pic so we can see whats going on?

[NickB00]

Here is a pic of the diagnostics screen, it looks clear initially but hard to actually read the writing.
I struggle to read the input signals and similar sized writing, and it is all at the native resolution of 1024 x768 as recommended.

Worth posting a pic so we can see whats going on?

[Sterob]

It looks like you have 2 problems, that I can see.
First, your 'desktop' does not appear to be aligned to your Monitor correctly,
and your Mach 3 window is not set to 'full screen'.

Fix them and see how it looks.