project update

[Mini Beast]

Unfortunately, this project has been progressing at a crawl. Life gets in the way projects sometimes, as I'm sure y'all are aware. Some might remember me asking a bunch of questions in an earlier post. I got all my new stuff in around the beginning of June, except for the computer, which was an old hand-me-down. It was just like Christmas

[Mini Beast]

Here are a few pics I snapped as I was in process of putting the beast together.

[Mini Beast]

These are my first 3 attempts to run some code (sent to me by a friend) and see that everything works. The first one, I didn't have a V-bit to cut, so i just used a 1/4" flat endmill (yeah, I couldn't wait till the next day to get the right bit, ha). I forgot to rename my license file, so it was stopping after line 500. The second one was with the v-bit on a piece of MDF I had in my scrap pile. This one showed that I had x-axis reversed and IJ mode set incorrectly. The last one looks pretty good, but I'm losing steps in the x-axis for some reason. I'm still trying to troubleshoot this issue. I'd like to give a special thanks to Jeff Birt who sold me all of the cnc equipment. His support has helped me get this far pretty quick, considering I've only been able to spend a couple hours a week on this project.

[daanmuller]

I was also losing steps with a taig and gecko setup, what solved it for me was setting sherline half pulse mode in mach.

[Jeff-Birt]

Sherline mode lengthens the pulses output by the parallel port. If you have a slightly marginal parallel port output then longer pulses might indeed help. If you have a really poor driver test then it probably would not help. Trying it is a really good idea.

I have an older 1.5 GHz AMD (P4 vintage) in the shop that works fine with the G540 but can handle more than a 65 kHz kernel speed. I did not use Sherline mode as I was trying to do a head-to-head test with a SmoothStepper. I use a SmoothStepper though in daily use.

[Mini Beast]

Thanks. I will try it in that mode and see if it helps. Also, I haven't tried adjusting the kernel speed. I think it's still at the default 25kHz. Maybe I could try to adjust that and see if it helps?

[Fixittt]

I have always had to set the g540 to sherline mode. Dont ask me why. Things would drivf and get really ugly really fast, but after setting sherline mode, it all sorted itself out.

[SpeedsCustom]

Good start, anyone know how many pulses are added when in Sherline Mode

[escott76]

Originally Posted by SpeedsCustom Good start, anyone know how many pulses are added when in Sherline Mode

Lengthens the pulses, not adds them. Adding pulses would be a bad thing.

[Mini Beast]

Originally Posted by daanmuller I was also losing steps with a taig and gecko setup, what solved it for me was setting sherline half pulse mode in mach.

Dude, I owe you a beer for that one!

This looks much better, I'm ready to move on and start making parts now. woohoo

[Jeff-Birt]

Sweet! Glad you got it sorted!

[SpeedsCustom]

Thats what I meant. Lengthens pulses, any idea by how much?

When I had troubles in EMC2, it was recommended to have a certain amount of pulses for the G540. When I changed the setting to make the pulses longer, I was gettting better results but everyone still urged it was an issue with my PC. I guess I was basically doing like a sherline mode...


That looks much better. What was your time?


-Jason