Please Hep ! --galil + gecko + Mach3 - z axis probs

[jghielme]

I have a Galil card 18x2, ICM 2900, and three Gecko g201's driven by Mach3.

The x axis, y axis, homing limits on x and y axis, and estop are working beautifully.

Now, I am working on the z axis and I am totally stumped. I cannot seem to get the motor to move physically, on the screen, or using plain old g code.

1. I enabled the z axis in ports and pins, step pin to 6, direction to 7
2. I played with settings of dir low active and step low active and it made no difference - no movement
3. I am using a motor and driver that worked great on the x axis which eliminates the motor and driver as potential culprits
4. confirmed that the stepper jumper was on the galil card dmc-1832

and still no physical movement on the x axis or numerical movement on the screen

What am I missing? My guess is that it is something simple but I have run out of things to test.

[Al_The_Man]

I prefer trouble shooting using the Galil Terminal to talk directly to the card.
You can command the card with the native two letter mnemonics.
As well as the jumper, the MT command has to be set in the DMC1832.
Maybe Mach is not setting this in the card?
Al.

[jghielme]

Thx for the suggestion. I used SmartTerm to set MT to 2, -2 and I even tried setting it to 1 (servomotor). The changes had zero effect on Mach3.

I did uninstall SmartTerm and install GalilTools, but I had to change drivers to get GalilTools to see the card. Once I changed drivers, Mach3 stopped working. So, back to the old drivers and SmartTerm.

Besides enabling an axis in Mach3 using ports and pins/enable, is there another place to activate an axis?

[ger21]

You might want to ask on the Mach Support forum. The guys that work on the Galil plugin usually answer questions there.

[jghielme]

Did it yesterday -

Still have no response.

[dblazer]

Did it yesterday -

Still have no response.

When you gave the MT command did you specify the motor type for all three axes.
ie: MT 2,2,2:
Here's the machine program command for three servo motors:
rc = DMCCommand(hdmc, "MT 1,1,1;", buffer, sizeof(buffer));

[jghielme]

Yes - did the MT command for all three axis. Then I confirmed that it took.

The interesting thing is that whatever I set the card to via SmartTerm or GalilTools, the Mach3 Plugin ignored it.

The good news is that I finally figured it out --- wohoo !


Within Mach3:

Goto Config - plugin control
- double click the yellow config button next to the @galil barker .... part

A magical screen pops up to configure the plugin.

click on axis setup
Select z(c)

save - save - save

... and the z axis is now live.

Thx to everyone for their help.