Good Morning,
First thank you to all the people that post here - it has been a great resource so far.
I am new to CNC machining and a few months ago purchased a used NM-145 (4th owner I believe).
The machine is having some problems and after much searching I am still not sure the best way to proceed.
First the basics.
Machine is in very good mechanical condition and has been generally well maintained.
the only modification I know of is a ShadowspawnLLC Motor/VFD Conversion, other than that I believe that it has stock electronics.
I can see from the maintenance records provided that the C11G board and two Gecko drivers have been replaced at some point.
I believe this was all from the original owner who used machine for electronics production work i am told.
PC is running 32bt Windows 7 using Mach3 (V R3.043.066) and has Mach Standard Mill Screenset installed.
PC is not network connected and does not seem to have any background processes enabled that are causing interruption.
All CAD/CAM is Fusion360 using the native Fusion Mach3mill post.
Now the issues.
I ran the mill for about a month of testing and learning with no hiccups.
At that point the machine started to pause at random points in any program i tried to run.
Sometimes it would be 10-30 seconds and then recover and continue on - other times it would just sit there stuck.
By stuck I mean that Mach was completely non responsive (could still access windows control panel). Machine pauses in all axis but Spindle still running. Nothing flashing in mach - just paused at whatever point it was at.
only when Estop is pressed does Mach fire back up immediately - otherwise i would have to force stop the program through task manager.
If it freeze during a Z retract move it loses track of position and Z height is effected typically going deeper into the part when if recovers.
The problem has been getting progressively worse and at this point I cannot run a program at all.
The only things I have done are adjust the look ahead (was at 20 lines - bumped to 150 lines) this however made no difference that I could see.
I also noted that driver watchdog was disabled (which I read is common)
Last night I ran a program that had been freezing but cut air only and it didn't freeze. I need to repeat this later today and see if it is consistent or just a lucky run.
Lastly I have run the same programs using the regular Mach 3 Screenset and I get the same results.
Any help is appreciated!
Please be gentle on this newbie - I will do my best to provide any addition info requested.
Regards and thanks in advance
Eric