Mach3 can now do 100Khz pulse rates.

[ger21]

Quote from Art on the Yahoo group.

Hi All: Version 2.01 is online and is the new lockdown (Mach3 Suite). It incorporates all bug fixes to date, add the tool length comp to the toolpath display and has the new lazycam . It also has a new Mach3 flash screen which can be loaded from the /Flash folder. Flash screens may now be stretched to any size, with the full screen being used. Oh, and I more than doubled Mach3's speed since we're near done with the printer driver. You may now select 25K, 35K, 45K, 60K, 65K, 75K or 100Khz as your base frequencies. A few notes.. This does not mean you should be the "cool" guy and use 100khz because you can. , remember at all times the rule, if your velocity slider is maxed out in one kernal and you know you can go faster, then you may bump to the next level. It takes a fair amount of cpu to run 100khz. My 1.2Ghz single core just manages it. Remember that windows slows as mach3 increases in kernal speed, so keeping it as low as possible makes the gui work better and such. I wont have much sympathy for the guy reporting jitter or lost steps at 100khz when switching window screens. Specially if his motor maxes out at 8khz. Keep the kernal as low as you need, but if you need 100khz, then fine, go fer it. It seems to work here fine and even 200khz was pretty stable for me. ( And no, I wont send you a 200khz version, youll just have to trust me. :-) ) That having been said, over the last 2 years, CPU's have sped up, not to moores law's dictates, but quite a bit. Those with dual core cpu's and such deserve to get as much as they can, so in thet vein I have increased mach3 to 100khz. For those curious about such things, I have run successfully at 230khz, but barely, any my computer locks up at 300khz output, the theoretical limit is about 333Khz with no pulse stretching, but I doubt Ill ever see it. I have locked it to 100khz because I like to have it half the speed I can run, thus meaning most could run at that speed if they had to. Expect a 4 second frequency lock in time at very high kernal frequencies when starting the program. The new download is 20megs approx. My appologies for that, but Mach3 has grown quite a bit over time, so this lockdown was bound to be much larger than Mach2. However, I am moving to an update system that will only contain the files needed, and will then make updateing much faster. This means in future that updates may only be made to a system already running the latest lockdown version. The lockdown version will rarely change. It is quite stable, and will be only periodically updated to take into accoutn the files that will appear in the development update installer. I have only a couple minor bugs Im chasing in areas most dont use. Have fun, experiences at higher speeds are welcome, Id like to know how the higher kernals affect you, dont blame me for having to reboot if you push for the moon.. Id recommend a 1.3Ghz fast machien for 100khz, and thats a dead minimum... Thanks, Art