[wxgeek]

Well its been a long hard slog but construction of the KRMx01 is nearly complete.
I installed the software (Mach3) and then connected the stepper motors
to the G540 and then powered up the G540. Everything in Chapter 12 of the book went
swimmingly until p166 where it says "use the arrow keys to operate the X and Y motors".
No dice...nothing moves. Tried Pg Up/Pg Dn for the Z axis and ...same result.

This is an older PC running Windows Vista in 32 bit mode(I checked to make sure).
Felt one of the stepper motor shafts and the shaft appears to be frozen when powered
on with a faint humming sound noticeable. Same thing on the other 3 motors.
When powered off... I can slowly turn the motor shaft.

Also...read a comment about a problem with Vista not sending commands to the motors
because the port driver was not operating. Well I downloaded a file called memoryregister.zip
and that was supposed to take care of that.

Any hints on how to troubleshoot this problem???

Jim

[wxgeek]

Good News!

Rechecked wiring and all of the config steps in Chapter 12. Found out that when I did the "Ports and Pins" config menu (Fig 12.25) that I did the Enabled, Dir Low and Step Low columns...but did not change the Step Pin #, Dir Pin # or the Step Port or Dir Port columns. Doh! Put in the correct info and restarted Mach 3 and voila! motors shafts turn now when arrow keys are pressed on the keyboard. Whew! That was a close one!

So now on to the mounting of motors in Chapter 13. Bye the bye...I see that the mounting of the motors requires rod couplers/standoffs 7/8" length. Does anyone have a part number or local source (Big Box/Radio Shack/Ace Hdwe)???

Jim

[msimpson99]

The part numbers I used on the rod couplers wont help as HomeDepot keeps changing the numbers. They are located back in the hardware section near all the metal and threaded rod.

If you cant locate rod couplers you can always use multiple nuts and washers. They are just being used as spacers.