Dell 3100 creates chatter w/mach software

[wes]

I am building my own 6'x10' woodworking machine and am using Homeshopcnc steppers, Gekkos, PMDX power and controller boards. I am also using Mach 3.

When I powered up my controller box for the first time I was using my brother's older model Dell since it had a parallel port built in. All worked smoothly. After I purchased an add-on parallel port for my Dell 3100 I fired up the stepper motors and was amazed at how they bounced around on the bench!

I have a 2400 series Dell and put all of the cables and cards into it to run a test. The steppers ran smoothly on the 2400 series dell with the add-on parallel card. Dell came and replaced the motherboard on the probelmatic 3100 series machine and nothing changed. Still major bouncing. Dell is considering giving me another machine in a different series.

[ger21]

It's possible that some other software or driver is interfering with Mach3. The usual recommendation is to use msconfig and delete everything in the start up tab. If that doesn't help, look into the optimisation list at www.machsupport.com

Also, steppers just running on a table may not run very smoothly, due to not havu=ing any load on them. Many times just mounting them on the machine is enough to get them running smoothly.

[wes]

I have two computers on the tabletop. One is the new(bad?) 3100 and the other is my kids old 2400. Both are Dells. The 3100 is running without anything on it except XP and Mach. The 2400 is running with every known game on earth on it. There must be 50 icons on it's desktop and 20 programs in the system tray. It takes about 5 minutes to start it up due to problems that it has and clicking through all of the error messages yet it STILL runs smooth. The 3100 does not run smoothly even running bare bones.

I have friends who are running the same config as me, except they are running the Dell B1100, and they have no issues.

I cut some comments from my original post because I didn't think they were relevent but I guess they are. This same computer (Dell 3100) was used on 3 other brand new CNC machines from 2 different manufacturers with the same result (chatter). I thought that the cnc machines were bad and returned all 3 of them. One of the machines was a brand new Shopbot PRS Alpha. They sent 2 techs from their factory out to try to get the chatter to stop. They couldn't. The first 2 machines were from another company and they came out twice and couldn't figure it out (it had other issues as well). NOBODY thought to check the brand new Dell 3100 for deep rooted issues. Everything else was checked.

As you know, Shopbot doesn't use Mach. The first manufacturers machines used Wincnc and servos!

I'll try Mariss' recommendations just to rule them out, but I really don't think that it will make a difference. I could be wrong.

[chevdrgtrk]

my servos were doing that......go into the motor tuning, and check to see if the velocity, and accellerations are the same between the 2 computers.....I had to turn the acceleration down, and they smoothed out......most of the time, I have 1 axis that is easy to turn, and sometimes still gets chatter in it.....but only when I hit the stop button right in the middle of a program.

[wes]

chevdrgtrk,

It's the dell. I don't have servos but I don't know if that matters in this situation. What I do know is that I ran these steppers on 3 different Dell machines and only the 3100 pooped out.

The interesting thing is that the Indians at Dell (dot not feather) decided that the CNC machine was at fault even after two other Dell machines behaved correctly. Oh well, NEVER another Dell for me or my company.

[chevdrgtrk]

well, don't feel to bad........I got a flash drive for mine, to make loading the programs easier (my cam software is in the house) and the computer I have will read everything USB except the flash drive, so I have to burn a cd just for loading G code out in the garage......seems like a waste of time, but I can't think of a better way.

[fatal-exception]

If you change your computer type to Standard PC, this problem will most likely go away. It took a whole saturday to figure that one out....

From the optomization file:

9. Set Computer to Standard PC NOT ACPI PC
NOTE: This is only necessary if you wish to remove ACPI AFTER install.
If you followed step 0, you don't need to do this.


1. Right Click My Computer and select Properties
2. Click Hardware tab.
3. Click Device Manager Button in the middle.
4. Double click "Computer".
5. Right click on Standard ACPI PC and choose Update Driver.
6. Choose "Install the software from a Specific Location (Advanced)"
7. Click Next.
8. Choose "Don't search. I will choose driver to install."
9. Click Next.
10. Choose "Standard PC" from the listing.
11. Click Next.
12. Click OK.