[zephyr9900]

I see on the Tormach website that they, without fanfare, have released the new version of PCNC, based on Mach3 version 3.042.029. The version on the website is for Series II and Series I with the new VFD. Hopefully they'll follow up with a version for the old-school Series I machines.

I am already running Mach3 3.042.029 on my old-school Series I, and the improvement in performance is significant. Back in October I wrote

This past week, I installed Mach3 version 3.042.029 (the current lockdown version) and have been using it (the released PCNC version is Mach3 version 2.42). The performance improvement on contouring moves (lots and lots of small angled 3D lines) is amazing. A file that took 1:19:59 to machine with 2.42 takes 46:06 with 3.042.029--the identical file, with identical motor tuning, with identical CV numbers. The machine movement is much more fluid and less resonant--almost like having a new machine! The new PCNC release will be a major improvement for people who do 3D contouring.

An unfortunate side effect is that it has put me back in the mode of tending to just watch the machine run for the coolness of it...

Based on my experience I suggest upgrading ASAP!

Randy

[justgary]

Randy -

Thanks. I'll go get it and give it a try.

Regards,

- Just Gary

[kprice1658]

Randy,

I also have the 'old-school Series I' machine. I emailed tech support yesterday to find out about a release for these models. No response as of yet.

Did you have to make any changes to get this version to run on your machine?

Kevin

[LENS_CAD]

I have a Series I machine with the spindle drive upgrade. I downloaded and installed the Machine Control Software PCNC1100M3-IIRell3.11h.exe

The machine now moves with a jerky motion with loud rumbling/banging sounds especially near rapid speeds. The Z axis is the worst. I have not tried running any g-code with the new software yet.

Len

[zephyr9900]

Kevin, I didn't install Tormach's release. I installed the standard Mach3 rev. 3.042.029 last month but it was somewhat of a chore, and needed some hand-holding from a Mach expert. My machine was out of commission for a couple of days while I fumbled around, and briefly I was using the generic Shuttle Pro driver from the Mach website because the current Tormach shuttle driver doesn't work with 3.0xx Mach3. The Shuttle Pro driver will work after you set up the buttons, but it won't light the "active axis" LED's next to the DRO's.

I could write up the procedure that I ended up using to install 3.042.029 on my own, but won't because it's a really good way to create a non-fuctional Tormach if you don't do every step just right. And my "ordeal" was after already having some experience with Mach3 already, having installed it on my home-converted lathe.

Another consideration is that I only use the very basic functionality of Mach3--I don't use probing or wizards or 4th axis or anything beyond "vanilla" 3D machining, just gcode generated by MeshCAM and SheetCam and my own macro-generated gcode from VersaCAD and some hand-written code, so my own testing of the software is actually pretty limited vs. the full Tormach release.

Hopefully Tormach will issue a version of the new software for Series I machines. The improvement in motion control transcends any difference between the old and new VFD's.

Randy

[zephyr9900]

Wow, Len (you apparently posted while I was composing my own post just above), my experience is exactly the opposite. For me jogging is the same as 2.42, but actual gcode interpretation is much smoother. When I was testing my own installation, I had to go back and forth between 2.42 (Tormach) and 3.042.029 (general) to believe the difference back-to-back (well, it took some messing in Device Manager and a couple of reboots to go back and forth between the two installations but that was the matter of just a few minutes once I had the procedure figured out).

What's your PC? I'm still using the Dell B110 that I bought in 2006. 2.5GHz Celeron, 512Mb memory so it's not a blazing fast PC by any means.

Edit: I looked at the installation PDF and it says:

PLEASE NOTE! If your machine serial number has only 3 digits, then you may experience
axis motor faults with this software. Please contact Tormach and we can supply an alternate
configuration file for you.

so you might fit in that category, Len.

Randy

[BobWarfield]

I wonder what the difference is on the older machines that they may fault?

Different stepper motors? Different drives?

Peeps might be able to upgrade and get more performance if they knew.

Cheers,

BW

[LENS_CAD]

Hi Randy,

My machine's serial number is 1265. The computer is a Dell purchased from Tormach pre-configured. I have not added any software other than what is specifically required for the PCNC.

I noticed that it no longer boots at power-on either. I will read through the section in the manual and maybe contact Tormach support if I can't get it working properly.

Len

[zephyr9900]

Bob, my machine is serial 128, so it is a fairly old one. The only upgrades I know about on my machine vs. the original ones is that its table is longer.

My machine has the older, "Tordrive 2000" Gecko-clone stepper drivers. At the change to 4-digit machines Tormach changed stepper drivers to the Tordrive 6A. (Tormach doesn't have a datasheet on their website, but appearance-wise, and due to the fact that it is called a 6A driver, and it needs to be capable of being set to 10 microsteps to give the .0001" step resolution, to my eye it looks like an ICHmo C460-125DC but don't quote me on that. I'm no Tormach insider, just a user... ) I'm assuming that would be the functional difference between 3- and 4-digit machines.

Some owners have reported problems with the older axis drives, but mine have always been reliable (though if any ever give out I'll replace them with genuine Geckos). Since Len's machine is a 4-digit, he will have the newer stepper driver though.

As far as I know, the acceleration and maximum velocity are set fairly conservatively. It would be interesting to compare the XML's of the 3- and 4-digit machines to see if there are any differences there.

Unfortunately, now that I have actually downloaded the new PCNC revision, Avast! Antivirus (with virus signatures up-to-date as of today) gives a warning (which I'm assuming is a false positive) and won't let me run the installer on my desktop machine, so I'm not currently able to compare the XML's... Update: After confirming that there was no virus I did report to Avast! as a false positive.

Randy

[mayhugh1]

lens-cad
In the new series II software release Tormach increased the x and y rapids to 90 ipm. Some of the series I machines such as mine and, perhaps yours, can't handle this and the rapids need to be set back to their original 65ipm values. If you don't know how to change your profile, just email support at Tormach and they will email you back an updated .xml file with the original rapid values to replace the one that came with the upgrade.
All in all, this release fixes numerous issues with Mach3 including the infamous feedhold problem and more importantly a restructuring of how VB scripts are executed. This affects the digital probe and shuttle performance. Unfortunately, after three years of trying to get threading on the lathe working properly, Art managed to finally do it last week and issued a new lockdown version of Mach3 (3.042.031) only days after Tormach released their version (3.042.029). So we might see another release from Tormach shortly since I'm sure this affects threading on the duality lathe. It should be a relatively safe incremental upgrade since threading was supposedly the only thing touched in the new lockdown. But then I've not heard of any complaints with Duality lathe threading with the existing software either. - Terry

[zephyr9900]

Len, that's a good course of action. John Prentice, who is Tormach's software consultant, is a very experienced Mach wizard and should be able to sort things out for you. Your experience should be a good datapoint. I'm just sorry you're having problems compared to my very positive results.

Randy

[zephyr9900]

As far as I know, the acceleration and maximum velocity are set fairly conservatively.

In the new series II software release Tormach increased the x and y rapids to 90 ipm.

Wow, Terry, apparently Tormach was very conservative.

Update: I did some playing, and 90 ipm rapids definitely lose steps on my 3-digit Series I machine. 75 ipm sounds solid, but I'll have to write some testing gcode and do some actual measurements with a test indicator.

Randy

[LENS_CAD]

Hi Terry,

I'm getting rough motion at speeds somewhat less than maximum, even 20 0r 30 ipm. Anything above the very slowest jogging speed isn't quite right. I have tried jogging with both the jog/shuttle controller and MDI.

Also, I noticed that the buttons around the edge of the controller have unexpected actions in addition to their normal ones such as changing Mach screens or opening the wizard window. Weird!

Len <><

[mayhugh1]

lens_cad
Did you remember to re-boot the machine after the driver was installed? If so, then I would uninstall the PCNC software completely including the driver and then re-install using the package you downloaded from the Tormach site. If you have a too table that you want to keep, then save it temporarily on your desktop. It is the tools3.dat file in the macros folder named PCNC-M3 or PCNC-M3-W depending on which version you were running before the upgrade. When you re-install just copy it back into the macro folder named PCNC1100M3-II.
Versions of mach3 sometime after our 2.42 used a new updated driver (the mach pulsing engine). I thought I remembered from one of the Mach forums that an uninstall of the old driver was required before upgrading to a version using the new engine. I searched the mach archives trying to find out if what I remembered was true but I couldn't find the post I was looking for. Tormach made no mention of doing an uninstall and so when I upgraded I just installed over the old 2.42 and everything went well. It could be that part of the Tormach installer actually removes the old driver and if so a reboot after the upgrade is definitely required or you can corrupt the driver itself. You can also run the driver test to see if the new driver is installed and working well. There is a file in the PCNC3 folder called DriverTest.exe that you can run to check the driver installation. While running you should see a performance bar extending into the "excellent" area and very few noise spikes in the time spectral plot and the pulsing frequency should be pretty close to 25KHz with minor perturbations. If this is working OK then I would re-install the package you downloaded without trying to uninstall the driver. At the end of the installation the software will still insist on re-installing the new driver over top the existing one and you must let it do it. In this case nothing bad will happen but I would do the reboot again again just to be cautious. Since you have a newer machine which is supposed to work with the higher axes rapids (the accelerations were not changed) it is starting to sound like your driver is just corrupted - maybe from not doing the reboot the first time. - Terry

[Art Pentz]

Hi all;

I installed the new Tormach software yesterday and am having a problem w/ the Duality Lathe upgrade. (The old version worked fine).

The Mill software installed OK and all axes jog nicely.

The Duality Lathe software installed, but there is a problem w/ the "Z" axis (the axis formerly known as "X").

The stepper growls and makes really nasty noises when jogging - the other axes work fine.

This same stepper works fine in mill mode.

I also noticed that the release number on the upgraded Duality Lathe software indicates that it is 2.2a instead of the expected 2.2b.

I spent several hours trying to get the 2.2b upgrade to work (re-booting etc.)

Any ideas?

Best regards;

Art Pentz

[kprice1658]

Kevin, I didn't install Tormach's release. I installed the standard Mach3 rev. 3.042.029 last month but it was somewhat of a chore, and needed some hand-holding from a Mach expert. My machine was out of commission for a couple of days while I fumbled around, and briefly I was using the generic Shuttle Pro driver from the Mach website because the current Tormach shuttle driver doesn't work with 3.0xx Mach3. The Shuttle Pro driver will work after you set up the buttons, but it won't light the "active axis" LED's next to the DRO's.

I could write up the procedure that I ended up using to install 3.042.029 on my own, but won't because it's a really good way to create a non-fuctional Tormach if you don't do every step just right. And my "ordeal" was after already having some experience with Mach3 already, having installed it on my home-converted lathe.

Another consideration is that I only use the very basic functionality of Mach3--I don't use probing or wizards or 4th axis or anything beyond "vanilla" 3D machining, just gcode generated by MeshCAM and SheetCam and my own macro-generated gcode from VersaCAD and some hand-written code, so my own testing of the software is actually pretty limited vs. the full Tormach release.

Hopefully Tormach will issue a version of the new software for Series I machines. The improvement in motion control transcends any difference between the old and new VFD's.

Randy

Randy,
Thanks for that info. I'm not an expert machinist - just a hobbiest, so I'll wait to what Tormachs official postition is on the old school Series I machines.

Kevin

[zephyr9900]

Len, I'm assuming you've rebooted and retried PCNC by now. Hopefully you're up and running. If not, here are a couple of notes.

1. DriverTest.exe (that Terry mentioned) will not run with the incorrect Mach driver installed. That is a first check.

2. You can force a reinstall of the Mach driver without reinstalling the whole PCNC software. Right click on My Computer and go to Properties | Hardware | Device Manager. Click on the + next to Mach X Pulsing Engines, right-click on Mach3 driver and select Uninstall. Close out My Computer, reboot the computer, go to the PCNC directory and run DriverTest.exe. You'll get a brief hourglass icon and nothing else will happen. It is installing the Mach3 driver. Run DriverTest.exe again and it should bring up the diagnostic window. As Terry said, the bargraph should be in Excellent (green and about halfway across the window) and the graph above should have very few glitches.

It is interesting that, on my machine, even though the Mach driver is set for 25 khz it is actually making a steady 16 khz.

Art, I don't have a Duality lathe but you (Len too) should email Tormach with your observations so they have more datapoints for troubleshooting the software. It is obviously a software problem since your PC nor cabling nor machine hardware have changed.

Kevin, I'm not an expert machinist myself, but have been a hobby CNC machinist for about a decade now. First CNCPro and then TurboCNC on a Sherline mill and lathe, and now Mach3 on the Tormach and home-converted Feeler lathe.

Randy

[zephyr9900]

I installed PCNC1100M3-IIRell3.11h.exe on my Tormach PC and copied over my XML, tool table and screenset from my own Mach3 installation. PCNC works, as far as I can see, identically to 3.042.029 for me. Mach3.sys on this installation reports as version 4.0.0.2, and so does Mach3.sys in the standard release, though the files are different dates and different sizes (106kb vs 108kb).

Randy

[mayhugh1]

Randy,
A couple of differences between the Tormach release and the Mach3 generic that I can see include the screenset. The VB scripts behind the buttons on some of the screens are updated in the Tormach release and some of the functionality they represent is specific to the Tormach. There are also some macros (m990 and m998 are two examples that come to mind) that are specific to the Tormach hardware, and these are included and updated only in the PCNC software. There might be other differences in addition to their own testing effort that they apply to a new release. I expect this is significant and probably why they aren't so quick to keep up with the latest and 'greatest' version from the Mach developers. - Terry

[zephyr9900]

Oh yeah, Terry, that is why I pointed out earlier that I only use the basic Tormach functionality and haven't tested all the macros.

But I wanted to see if there was anything fundamentally broken in the new Tormach release motion-control-wise, and there doesn't seem to be.

I did copy over the Tormach macro folder (which includes the edited M998 to do the double-touch on each home switch that flick described on this thread) when I did my own Mach3 install (along with my XML, tool table and edited Tormach screenset as I pointed out above). I couldn't use the new Tormach XML since I still have the old axis and spindle drivers. I could go into Motor Tuning and bump the rapids back down to 65 ipm on the new XML, but I don't know how the VFD control is handled.

Randy