MACH 1.90.065 "Nedd port and pin settings

[over60]

hello
All
trying to get set .. hooked everthing up and no communications with the machine.. Does anybody have acheat cheat sheet of setting that must be checked ?? Or I will eb\ven settle or a latest version of V3 setting.. possible PDf file like V2

ran version 2 demo earlier and recently purchased V3..
Comments welcome..

Chips

[ger21]

Watch the setup video at www.machsupport.com

The first one deals with install and setup. Ports and pins depends on the drives your using and how you have everything wired. There is no one setup works for all.

[over60]

thanks ger

I will do that..

Cheers

[over60]

Went thru the video.. So how do I find info for 269oz/in 1.8 degree steppers..

Seems if I have this then i should be off and running

[ger21]

1.8 degree is 200 steps per rotation. What info are you looking for? Steps per unit, or pinouts?

[over60]

ports and pin settings for xyand Z

[ger21]

Has nothing to do with the motors. It depends on your stepper drives, and how they are wired to the parallel port.

[chipsahoy]

Anyone have a good source for info on this.. How to figure and where to put the information???

Chips

[Torchhead]

ports and pin settings for xyand Z

Are you using any form of breakout card? In most circumstances the seller of the card will give you which pins are mapped to which signals.

Is the parallel port on the control computer working and at the address you find in the Config/Ports & Pins/General tab? Most motherboard ports are at 0378 hex for port 1.

The "normal" pins for Step and Dir in MACH3 are:
X Step = 2
X Dir = 3
Y Step = 4
Y Dir = 5
Z Step = 6
Z Dir = 7

All signals set to Active Low

Your motor drive card should have the pinout if it uses a 25 pin cable.

Tell us more about the design like the type of motor drivers and if you have a breakout board (interface between the PC and the motor drivers and the inputs from switches.

The actual motor "tuning" (like tuning a piano) is a function of several factors. First you have to determine how many pulses the parallel port (from MACH3) has to send to an axis to move one "unit". A unit is either an inch or a mm depending on your choice of what you work in (not what the linear components are measured in). Most steppers are 1.8 deg. Since there are 360 degs in one full rev then math tells us that that is 200 steps. Okay that rotates the motor one full revolution. Now how many revolutions of the motor does it take to move the table (at the tool) exactly one unit? It's a function of gearing if any, the pitch of the leadscrew (if a leadscrew is involved) OR the ratio of the Pinion gear and rack. In any case you have to multiply any step or step down in the mix so you end up with how far you have to rotate the motor to move one unit.

Once you have the Steps per unit figured for each axis and input into MACH3 in the Motor Tuning section then you are ready to set velocity and acceleration. Velocity is the max speed your motors can move in the configuration you have. It varies wildly. Some machines can do 1000 IPM and higher. Others can only do 15 IPM or less. We can't even start to give you even a ballpark just based on the size motor. It it was direct drive to a 1" dia pinion the number could easily be 500 IPM If through a 10TPI leadscrew maybe only 50.