[EvanZ]

I have a CNC4PC C10 Breakout board, with mach3 on the PC, I have a chopper drive from Hubbard CNC 60Volts at 20Amps Antex Powersupply. I have everything hooked up for one axis as is shown in the C10 userguied. I get nothing but when I trigger the E-Stop Mach does see it. I can take the inut swres and manually pulse them and make the motor try to step. What in the world have I done wrong, what are things I should look for.

Sorry this is so brief, but alas it is late and I need to crash.

Also Sorry I have been missing from the CNC world for so long, women and Going back to school at ISU has taken up most of my last year.

I will be looking forward to all the help I can get from your great minds,

Night all,
Evan

PS Thanks...

[TOTALLYRC]

I have a CNC4PC C10 Breakout board, with mach3 on the PC, I have a chopper drive from Hubbard CNC 60Volts at 20Amps Antex Powersupply. I have everything hooked up for one axis as is shown in the C10 userguied. I get nothing but when I trigger the E-Stop Mach does see it. I can take the inut swres and manually pulse them and make the motor try to step. What in the world have I done wrong, what are things I should look for.

Sorry this is so brief, but alas it is late and I need to crash.

Also Sorry I have been missing from the CNC world for so long, women and Going back to school at ISU has taken up most of my last year.

I will be looking forward to all the help I can get from your great minds,

Night all,
Evan

PS Thanks...

My best guess from what you said is that you have the pins not set correctly in Mach3. Either that or your parallel port cable isn't any good.

[EvanZ]

I just checked the pins, they were wrong, I changed them but got nothing. the c10 is giving me 5V out on the step terminal, if I pull that wire out of the driver the motor makes a step, if I tap it, it steps. I have power on the step pin but no pulses, what gives?

E

Sorry folks for the spelling/grammer, I'm sleeping the best I can. Not easy when my machine is not running. I keep waking up to check CNCZ

[TOTALLYRC]

I just checked the pins, they were wrong, I changed them but got nothing. the c10 is giving me 5V out on the step terminal, if I pull that wire out of the driver the motor makes a step, if I tap it, it steps. I have power on the step pin but no pulses, what gives?

E

Sorry folks for the spelling/grammer, I'm sleeping the best I can. Not easy when my machine is not running. I keep waking up to check CNCZ

If you have a meter, set it to continuity or ohms and make sure that the paralllel port cable is showing straight thru connection and that none of the pins is connected to each other.
Mike

[Harpye]

I'll try to give you a short checklist - if anyone has additional ideas please feel fre to update:


00 check Centronics cable

1.0 read specification of Centronics input interface of interface board (
voltage level/ ranges for hi/low signal)

1.1 measure logical level on changing output on "no load" state ( cable
not connected to board but to PC)

1.2 connect cable to board and measure hi and low under load -the
current sink of the board might lower the voltage level of the
signals

Some newer Mainboards use Centronics drivers for notebooks which are specified with lower high level, so this check should compare the incomming signal with the required levels. -> if this is ok the interconection between PC and controlboard should be right


2.0 Take a Mach III template that is made for Milling -

2.1 Check your MachIII adjustments for the channel / axis

2.2 to make sure, there is a high low signal change on step watch your
Mach output monitor and compare with Centronics pin output
( take care of e-stop or other disenabeling signals - ( limiters or
reference switches)
If there is no fully comparability between MachIII monitor and pins
check the Centronics installation ( adresse(s) if you have several -
did you use the right?)

3.1 I had a case that Mach trial was installed but didn't work 100% what
means the pulsor (realtime clock reference which is placed below the
windows core) was not working succesfully what means
reinstallation, but this is a bit difficult for the ineffective part ist not
easy to uninstall - you perhaps should try to contact you dealer to
help with - or change to EMC


4.1 Anything works fine until now? You have your steppers left as a failure
source - are you able to measure a current trough both of the coils
within a series of 4 Steps ( your Amp should be programmed in fullstep
mode for this). If not, you should check the connection scheme - beep
through both coils -
measure coil resistance ( compare with spec and connect correctly!)

HJ

[EvanZ]

Ok school definitly has my brain turned to mush. I totally went glossy-eyed when I read this...

Does anyone speak stupid?

Sorry
Evan

[TOTALLYRC]

Ok school definitly has my brain turned to mush. I totally went glossy-eyed when I read this...

Does anyone speak stupid?

Sorry
Evan

I speakem das stupid.

All kidding aside, I understand what Harpye is trying to say, and agree with some of it,but it will take a while to translate into clearer english. I will post later when I get up if nobody has done so.

[Harpye]

Sorry about my ( very reduced) trial to explain but English is not my mother thoung - as you probably already found out yourselves... Beg your pardon, but if it is too stupid - tell me and I will quickly erase it !

Hj

[EvanZ]

Harpye NO! lol you are not the stupid on I AM! I have been so outta it with school and no sleep I just didn't comprehind what you were saying. I'm taking 25 hours of houners engineering credits this semester. Gag me! Why did I do that to myself (nuts)! With 25 hours a week of class and 48-50 hours a week of homework plus my hobby/school project I'm pretty well living in a fog.

Ok now that my rant is over. I built a simple test card were I cut the end off of a printer cable and soldered the wires onto a blank circut board and gave myself a easy test board then. I got 3.365Volts in one position on the X axis dir which I have as pin 3, and I have .60 volts in the other direction. I get this on all three axis output pins.

I checked and have the same signals with the db25 cable on the c10, so the cable is good. I THINK this is what I was told was the correct singles for direction.

Thoughts everyone?

Evan

[EvanZ]

wow I can't even spell. Sorry about that fellews. I just turned on the equi[pment and I'm getting some odd movments outta the motors, it only does it with mach sending signal. wth?

Evan

[Harpye]

Evan - I know what you mean ... the daily situation after 10 hours of work!

Ok - you need two signals (- Clock and Dir -additional the enable signals .... /e stop & /limiter for enable - could also be used for reference switch.) There are some SW tools for free on the web which can monitor the Hardwareside of your Centronics - as long as you have made sure that the 3,65V are available under load of the board, too and that the level is definitely high enough to be accepted by the board ( is this a notebook??? - 3,36V seems rather low to me) - do you use an opto interface) - you should get this spec from the manual - if the manufacturer is a serious one, or out of the Centronics driver spec if you are able to read the marking on the IC.

second is .... that some signals to use are low active - could you find out which ? -

If you want to drive the Motor manually you could fix all the other pins to certail level and switch the clock between high and low what causes the motor stepping !!! but you have to make sure to take the right voltage for Hi - level!


At the point ... Could you make sure that the Centronics spec of you PC is compatible with you centronics spec of the controller card in regarding the voltage level . That is one main reason why many notebook users switch to USB based systems ( but I don know if Mach does support this )..


Hj



Good luck on research and developement!!!

Hj

[TOTALLYRC]

Dear Harpye.
The problem with these forums is you can't see the expression on my face as I type. I was not trying to make fun of you, I was laughing with EvanZ.

It is very clear that english is not you native language, but it takes guts to post on a forum when that is the case.

I will try to translate from you rearlier post.
1. Cenronics is another name for printer cable but it normally has a different end like you would see on a pport printer. ( centronics connector)
1.1- 1.2 What he is saying in a nutshell is to make sure that you are getting the proper output voltages from the breakout board because most newer pports output 3.3v instead of the 5v of the original ports and a good breakoutboard will correct this problem.

2.0 Select Mach3 mill, not plasma or lathe.
2.1Verify you raxis settings inside of Mach3
2.2 Use a meter to make sure you are getting the proper signals on the proper pins and that the signal is going high and then low. The direction will only go high in one direction and low in the other. The step will go high and low with each step. set it to a low rater or your meter will not see it as it will be way too fast to see. Make sure your e-stop is connected correctly and that you are not on a limit switch or something.
3.0-3.1 It could be possible that Mach3 didn't install correctly and that the pulseing engine is malfunctioning. It can be a pain to completly uninstall mach3 and Maybee you should try EMC.
4.1 If everything checks out to this point your steppers are the next problem. you should have current going thru both sets of coils within 4 steps. Set the motor drives to full step for this test. If not, use you meter to check for continuity in each coil.
2.3

Now for my help. If you are getting 3.3v out of the breakout board, verify that the stepper drives will run on that voltage. Some drives require a high signal near 5 volts.

your low of .60 volts sounds good IIRC as long as it it below 1 volt you will be OK. BUT!!!!!! check what you stepper drive will accept for a high voltage and a low voltage. If you are on the ragged edge of their specs, you will have problems.

If your meter has a frequency setting, use that and test the output of one of the step pins, it is a lot easier to read a frequency for the steps than it is to se the voltage change. I think.

Your readings on the direction sounds good to me.

[Harpye]

Got me man !

As I searched for centronics spec the offered the IEEE 1284 interrface which is commonly named "centronics interface" -perhaps just in Germany - false friend???

Seams that EvanZ has exactly that " weak level interface" - depends on the Controlboard if that works ... but I know many cases when it didn't.


There are about 20 to 50 different Mach surfaces, bundles and applications by different distributors - so I didn't know if there is a milling template available in his version or if this has to be generated .

Overall thanks for translating from "BANGLISH TO ENGLISH" - - that is one thing why I decided to try an English forum - practice!!!


Thanks again ! Hansjoerg

[TOTALLYRC]

Got me man !

As I searched for centronics spec the offered the IEEE 1284 interrface which is commonly named "centronics interface" -perhaps just in Germany - false friend???

Seams that EvanZ has exactly that " weak level interface" - depends on the Controlboard if that works ... but I know many cases when it didn't.


There are about 20 to 50 different Mach surfaces, bundles and applications by different distributors - so I didn't know if there is a milling template available in his version or if this has to be generated .

Overall thanks for translating from "BANGLISH TO ENGLISH" - - that is one thing why I decided to try an English forum - practice!!!


Thanks again ! Hansjoerg

Hi Hansjoerg,
A centronics interface refers to the end that is on the printer and has a specific cable and port style, which is differnt from what the printer port looks like. The printer port is a db-25 connector, while the centronics end is very different. An actual printer cable has the db25 on 1 end and a centronics on the other. Of course there are always exceptions.

For cnc we use db25 on both ends.

What I think your are saying is that he has low voltages coming out of the printer port. " weak level interface" = lower than original specs. 5V original and 3.3v newer.
The newer ports are specify 3.3v to save power.
I believe that the breakout board is correcting that and he is getting 5v from the breakoutboard to send to the motor drivers.

Many suppliers are supplying their own Mach3 .xml file and you are correct that you need to be in the proper template or profile to make things work the way they should.

I am impressed that you are willing to practice your english this way.
I have worked with many people, especially Italians (I am of Italian decent) that don't always speak the best english or have a very heavy accent, so I have had lots of practice translating, or clearing up their english.
Tranlsating the english on this forum must be difficult for you because we do not always use the best spelling, there is lots of techno bable or slang and the grammer could use some improvement.

Thanks for chipping in and helping out.
Mike

[EvanZ]

Well folks, I got them working, Not really sure how, but I fiddled enough and get it going. I will get a build set up soon. I need to get some batterys for my cam, and I will start a post.

Thanks everybody, it ment alot to have the prodding in the right direction.

Evan

[TOTALLYRC]

Well folks, I got them working, Not really sure how, but I fiddled enough and get it going. I will get a build set up soon. I need to get some batterys for my cam, and I will start a post.

Thanks everybody, it ment alot to have the prodding in the right direction.

Evan

Congrats.
That is what we are here for.
Have one on me:cheers:
Or maybee 2 :cheers::cheers:
I'll have a couple with you.
:cheers::cheers::cheers:

looking forward to the pics

[Harpye]

One of those moments... success ... :cheers: !!!

Hansjoerg