Motor tuning under Mach3

[BAustin]

Hi Everyone, this is my first post to this forum. I purchased my IH mill this summer and after sorting out a few problems I am finally up and running.

Can anyone tell me what motor tuning settings you are using for your IH CNC mill (Steps per, Velocity, Acceleration, Step Pulse, Dir Pulse)? I currently have the following settings

"Steps per" = 20,000
Velocity (in/min) = 5
Acceleration = 3.5

Step Pulse = 0
Dir Pulse = 0

I know these are not correct settings because if I try changing the velocity to 100 in/min (which I believe is the recommeded setting?) the motor shudders badly and I can't stop it through software I have to kill the power.


Thanks for your help.
Brett

[Cruiser]

sounds to me like you may have your damp and gain set too hard on the gecko's. I made the same mistake, after softening up on both to quiet the motors humming back to very faint, then things got better. you didn't say which mach your using i'll assume 3. i've got vel @ 135 and accel @ 12 presently. But first ! your gain and damping must be set proper for this to work, how i understand this is, high gain with high damping make the motor tight and it will fight itself to do what it is told to do. You loose NO torque by backing off of gain and damping, you gain control ! if it is noisy will sitting static then it is tight, back off and noise will subside then, drive it in short back and forth runs (jog) and listen to it, tune it for quiet and smooth motion. I found as Aaron told me that with a little practice it'll all make sense and you'll too become an expert ! using an oscilloscope to do this is ideal, but not necessary and to use osc you'd have to remove the gecko cover to get to the hook up pin, unless there is another way, i did it by ear and it runs slick and quiet, I'd also insure that during tuning you insure your not too tight with the gib adjustments so that what you are hearing is the drive true ! Like Tim Allen, I like more power and thought that more gain/damp = more power ! oooh oooh ! WRONG !

[BAustin]

Thanks Cruiser, I spoke to Aaron yesterday and it turned out to be a problem with my belts not being tight enough. Also, Mach3 uses units of inches per minute now instead of inches per second for the velocity parameter. Anyway, I tightened up my belts and set the velocity to 90 in/min and now the motors are working perfectly.

Brett

[wildcat]

I had no idea that it was possible to set the acceleration so high!