The motherboard on the computer that runs Mach3 and my Microproto Microimill 2000 died, so I grabbed another computer from my boneyard (I'm a computer guy by trade), put in a new hard drive, a new parallel card (the old one was PCI and the new computer has no PCI slots) reinstalled XP and Mach3, put my old XML file in and thought I was good. But the stepper motors run rough, like they're filled with gravel. Since I haven't used the mill for nearly a year I disassembled it, cleaned out all the dirt and old grease, lubed it and put it back together, but the motors are still rough and uneven, with clicking and popping noises. With the motors off the feed screws turn smoothly.
Thinking that it had to be the computer since that's all that I changed, I grabbed another old computer, this time one that has a PCI slot so I can use the original parallel card, installed Mach3 and my original XML mill file. No luck, the motors are still rough, both jogging and running Gcode..
Since then I've tried everything I could think of but can't get the motors running smooth like they used to. And it's not just one stepper motor, it's all 3.
But here's a kicker, with the Motor Tuning window open in Mach the motors run much, much better. But as soon as it's closed they're rough again.
Some more info. The motors are Shanano Kenshi SST57D 1.8 degree per step, the mill feed screws are 20 threads per inch. I'm using 8000 steps per, 30 Velocity and 5 Acceleration. .
I've been working on this for 3 days now with no success. Any suggestions would be appreciated.