NEED HELP!!! LOSING STEPS

[lukas0001]

HI!
i was/am building my home cnc and i am yust going to freak out becouse my "machine" is losing steps when its doing the g-code file and i hawe tried many things to do it beter...nothing helps...
what could it be?
mach3?
cnc drivers?
mother board?
i am these - close to buy new kit.. :/
dont know what too do

help

thanks

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[Routerfiend]

Not really enough information about your build but a place to start would be to check out the mechanical side first.
Is the gantry running true ? If it`s out of square then it will bind and stall the stepper. ( Disengage the motor(s) and move by hand to see if there are any tight spots )
Is there contamination in the rack & pinion ( If you have them ) This will cause binding and loss of steps.
If all checks out ok then start looking at your programme. Does it lose steps in all axis ? Are you feeding too fast and the machine is trying to change direction too quickly ?
There are so many factors to consider as to the reasons for loss of steps it is all but impossible to tell you with any accuracy what the rout cause might be.
Good luck.

[lukas0001]

it runs fine by hand, and by MDI in mach3...only if i run g-code than it goes all crazy!! there is somethitg that i dont know if its good...
i first bought cnc kit NEMA17 for tryout yust for me too se if i can manage to run it
than i build litle biger machine and i needed stronger stepers..i bought nema23...actualy i dont know if these stepers go whit the drivers of nema17?


these are stepers and the drivers i am using! what do you think?


next thought is..well the thing is that the stepers was jamed couple times (x and y) and i am consured that i damaged it...

well here is the picture of the problem

squares are not aligned


i hawe still a lot to learn

[Routerfiend]

Not too sure about the compatibility . On your main board do you have stepper cards ( one for each axis ) ?There may well be dip switches on each board. Check that they are all set at the same settings. Just a thought.

[ger21]

What are the specs of the motors?
What voltage are you running them at?
Can you give us some info about your machine?
What velocity and acceleration settings are you using?

[lukas0001]

here are the specs of the motor


my machine is ALU constrution working area about 800x800x250 mm (X Y Z)

velocity i am using is 1000mm per min
aceleration 45mm per second
but i use that only for jog.when its reading the Gcode it is reduced to 400-600mm per minute.depending on what am i trying to cut! (not much for now)

the voltage is the 24V power suply and on the drivers i hawe set to put out to the motors 2.83peak/2rms
the DIP switches i have set to PULSE/REV 3200 MICRO 16
here is the picture


i dont hawe ENBL conected from the drivers...

I apologize for my ignorance and thaks for for the help

[whimsical]

3.5uH motors suffer with only 24V should be 60V really or 48V min and your controller is only rated for 36. I would ditch it and get a Gecko and another 24v supply and series them up.
I have a 6040 Chinese table and i did all the mods to the controller but they are just not right. I have just put in a Gecko G540 but haven't tried it yet, will tomorrow.
The Gecko seems to be the answer to many of the tales of woe on here.

[lukas0001]

so that might be the problem for losing steps?
i am thinking to buy full new kit but i am limited to about 200e...so what shoud i buy?
or if i buy only one more power suply and the drivers..? i REALY want to make it work!!!!!

thanks for helping

[whimsical]

don't just buy a new kit from ebay they are all not very good and the ebay ones are all you will get for 200e
This driver is good for smaller motors http://www.geckodrive.com/geckodrive...ives/g540.html

you probably have a power supply that looks like this
NEW 24V Switching Power Supply 15A 360W AC DC PSU FOR LED Lights Silver | eBay

Buy another one and wire the two outputs in series for 48v. get that done and then you know it isn't the electronics. If you still have problems then it is most likely mechanical.
How many motors move the beam, 1 in the middle underneath or 1 each side, I assume it is a moving beam type. Pics of the machine would help

[lukas0001]

hey

ok so i will get another power suply and try it... but shoud i buy stronger one and use it like single or buy the same like one i hawe already and wiriing them together?
yes i hawe one motor for each axis!

i first thoud that construction will be hard too build and that will be expensive, but i was wrong the electronics are expensive and hard to understand if you newer work whit electrical stuff ..
thanks man for helping. i hope this works
and i will get some pics of machine

[whimsical]

Don't add another power supply to the driver you have. It is only 36V and 48V will most likely see the smoke escape. Get the Gecko first.
I am still waiting for another 24V power supply to make mine 48V so i tested my machine with the Gecko on 24V today. The difference is amazing , so much more power, speed and smoother. When i up the P/S to 48V it will perform even better. I should have changed it right from the start but i didn't think it would make a huge improvement but it sure does.

[lukas0001]

so first the driver then the power suply...
but is not out there litlle more cheaper and also good driver than gecko for 230e?? can you recommend some drivers? (if there are some good and litlle more cheaper)

[H500]

Try the following and see if it helps:

-Lower the acceleration. This is the most likely cause.

-Change the step pulse width to 5uS

-Turn off the backlash compensation

[gwayne]

Mach3 is notorious for these kinds of issues, particularly with high acceleration. Other causes might be your stepper drivers overheating or shaft couplers slipping.

[Eldon_Joh]

try setting mach 3 to:
half pulse sherline mode.

If this fixes your problems then you have a bad parallel port driver, or slow optical isolators in your stepper drivers.

Unfortunatly buying a new parallel port card (one that plugs into a pcie bus or something) is unlikely to fix this problem, as i have set up a machine with one and 5us still wasn't enough.
It was losing steps upon direction change only in one direction, not the other, so it was cumulative and hard to identify with just a dial indicator (router, belt fed, .010" backlash, etc)

this could be a mach 3 problem but my experience has been, it is a weak parallel port line driver, why it only shows up in one driection, i dunno.

[lukas0001]

ok sory but half pulse sherline mede is...?? hehe...

BUT I FOUND SOMETHING!!!

parallel port CABLE is doing something strange... when i hawe powerd on the machine sometimes is grounded sometimes it isn t !!!! THIS MAYBE BE THE REASON

first thing tomorow is for me to go in the local store to get a NEW port cable!!!!!!!

I hope that this is the only Chinese cable going into the trash

[lukas0001]

hey!
well i changed te port cable....same thing
i hawe a question shoud be the drivers grounded? becouse i forgot to tell that my motors are giving strange sound but not big noise yust strange litle noise...like its ungrounded somethig...
interference??

[H500]

What have you tried so far?

[lukas0001]

actualy ewerything what came on my mine...

i tried to calibrate all three axis for several times and its ok..
today i changed the port cable-no change
i instal mach2 to se if the program is jaming... didn t help
i tried to lower the aceleration and speed ... didnt help
i chekt the wiriing of ewerythin and it seems too be good. only the drivers are suspicious..
.....

soo now i yust don t know if i probably damage the motors or the drivers are not compatibile whit stepers or they are yust crap ..

dont know

[H500]

The problem should be solvable if you do it step by step instead of randomly. I provided several things to try by you did not report whether you tried or not.