Need Help!- Mach3 Freezing PC Sometimes. And A Question About Accel.

[Brenck]

Hi everyone,

I recently started to use Mach3, It works fine when it works... Sometimes, I dunno why when I open It it freezes my pc, even the mouse doesnt move anymore to shutdown i have to pull out the power cord, Ctrl+Alt+Del several times doesnt work either...

Anyone got a clue on what can be happening? Its not a big deal, I can live with it but I wish that it was possible to make it not happen anymore

I tried to figure out when it happens but I could not logically understand. If I restart my PC and open it, it always works, on the first try, but if I close it and open again sometimes it freezes sometimes it doesn't.

Another thing:

When setting up accel. and speed values, is there a % of the max speed that accel shoud be? I tuned my motors they work good but I just randomly placed values there and tried, I don't want any losing steps while I cut a harder material, I wanted to know if there is a safety limit that I need to keep my speeds to avoid unexpected situations and surprises.

Thanks for all,

Gustavo

[benjamint76]

as far as the freezing goes, maybe there are some memory problems or some temp. file problems. Sorry don't know that one

For accel. my professional CNC friend says that there are formulas, but I don't have the data to put in it so we just moved on to the next best thing. He recommends just going until u break something and then back it off 20%. I don't like that mentality, so I just go by sound. And after some time and getting comfortable with the machine, I keep inc. the accel.

One more thing, you can accel until your motors stall and then back it down 20%....Hope that helps a little

[TDA]

Mach uses driver level functions so it doesn't play nice with other software.

Is there anything else installed on the computer? I know personally I can't run some firewalls or anti virus programs.

If it's XP did you already go though the XP optimization guild (Link)?

If it's running vista did you install the registry patch (Link)?

After that you can try running memtest (Link) and orthos (Link) if you thinks it is a hardware issue.

Orthos will stress both your CPU and RAM. It will do this inside of windows and has build in support for dual core processors.

Memtest you will need to burn to a disk and then boot off it. It will then automatically start it's tests.

If you can run those for a few hours without errors then you probably can rule out those components.

One last thing. Don't pull the power cord out just hold down the power button for about 5 seconds.

[Brenck]

I have a Pentium 4 HT 2.8ghz, 1gb ram

Its my only computer, I use it for everything so there is a bunch of stuff installed, I think the problem occurs when something is minimized, but im not sure... I was able to open Mach without freezing with Msn messenger opened

Of course I wont do that when running a gcode

[TDA]

Without having a dedicated system for mach you are probably always going to be fighting it.

Here's one thing you can try.

1. Click on start then run and type in msconfig .

2. Uncheck the box that says "Load Startup Items".

3. Click OK.

4. It will then ask you to reboot. Do so.

This will keep most of the programs that start with your computer from starting, which should help mach. You can then go back to msconfig when you are done and recheck the "Load Startup Items" box and reboot for normal use.

[benjamint76]

you know, you should be able to make a mach3 boot disk and see if that solves your problems. It might not be the long time solution, but it might get you by for a bit

[Brenck]

well... I figure it out that if I need to run Mach like on a G-code file I should restart and don't initialize anything, this way works with no freezing. Then I restart again and make my pc the way it was working before, activate the start up programs and other stuff...

I can live with it until I get a pc just for my mill.

Thanks for all the help guys.