mistermikev

well... if that's the worst thing that happens to you this year... prob doing all right then! chin up.

Well, the quantity my dad had wasn't great... but he had some lovely old style clamps that were overbuilt, and some good squares. That said... my dad was more a mechanic and those tools didn't apply well to my interests. Now my grandpa... he had drill presses, table saws... all sorts.

if you look at it right... looks like a shovel... "the shovelhead". nice lines.

tru dat. I think most of us in here were gettin' into dads tools at an early age as opposed to his beer... and then some of us getting into both!! Still have some of those tools but all the beer is gone. anywho, don't ever mix the two!!

mom - "stop working with powertools unsupervised and go do drugs like a normal kid"... this is not advice at all... DO NOT DO DRUGS... just thought it was funny.

"you'll put yer eye out" - red rider! well, hopefully not and not likely. so... all your excuses for not having built something already are pretty much gone - lets see some build pics pronto!!

ran it this morng w/o the spindle... def progressing west. "it's good!" thank y'all again for all the help!!

well that's nice but honestly the knowledge transfer is even more valuable. the sentiment is appreciate tho!!

right on. I saw the pages where they were showing how to set to 20/50/75/100 but wasn't sure how that actualized so you really cleared that up for me and I thank you. had no idea on the m1/2 and what that meant... so thanks again for that. l did look at my motors and the 4th axis and z axis are the sm size - slightly smaller than the others... so the switches seemed like they might correspond to that. I wonder if I messed up the x axis drive... I did bang that one off the walls more than any other. anywho, at this point... I think I've got enough info that if I end up needing to replace them I know I can get a similar one on evilbay... and this thread will be the perfect thing to use as a reference to potentially replace one. Not to get ahead of myself. Still am holding my heart as I'll run the neck pocket tomorrow and see if we have a definite fix. seems good on the test script... went right back to zero. thank you again for hanging in there with me!! I've learned a lot and very much thankful for your and mikros guidance.

well... thank you again gents - for all your help. you lead me to the problem. just swapped the drives and flipped the switches back to what they were on each drive before the swap... ran my test 5 times and we went right back to center. I want to end on a positive note tonight so I'm not going to attempt to run the neck pocket as my spirit just couldn't take it at this point if it doesn't go right... so saving that for tomorrow. Sure looks solved tho.

looks like X/Y are 3/4/7 while Z/A are 3/4/5/7 I've been looking all around the for a manual for these boards but no luck searching for similar 6560/6560AHQ, nor the other numbers I found on the board (prt st01a2 or TX14207) I did find a much better image of what appears to be the sm board over at cnczone: over at https://www.cnczone.com/forums/stepper-motors-drives/338540-tx14207-schematic.html and later found: Haven't fully digested this yet... but according to that perhaps they installed the drivers in the wrong position or flipped the switches wrong can anyone comment on what m1/m2/dcy1/dcy2/tq1/tq2 means in laymans' terms? edit: according to this: http://www.netzmafia.de/skripten/hardware/Datenblaetter/Motor-Servo-Stepper/TB6560AHQ_AFG_E_2003_20080407.pdf "torque setting input"

right on that makes a lot of sense then... the green plug is the 4 to the steppers with the pos/neg power, and the white plug is the 3 from the controller then. thank you for that.

roger that. thanks for the help. will try asap.

thanks for the chime in @mikro. I believe these are the "crappy little brother" to the 6600 ie the 6560. the dips: this machine does have a slightly dif (smaller) motor for the z axis. I think I read that the dip switches are set dif on this drive and possibly the A drive too? Can't find these exact drives anywhere altho there are similar 6560s on evilbay... but they don't have the white connector(black/red/yel you mentioned) - no idea what wires are what. accel - I believe it is 1500, microsteps I believe are 320 on the xya and 400 on z if I'm not mistaken. pulse is set to 0/o on all?? I have played with all of these settings with zero success. I took it all apart this morning and was looking at it just b4 work and was planning to label the drives and take a crap ton of pics for future reference -when I get home tonight.

I mean I would physically swap them as opposed to reconfigure in mach3 .

I would certainly be willing to try that - you've done so much so far - don't know how I'll ever repay. I know I know... "someday I might ask you for a little favor..." hehe. that said, I don't think x movement by itself is the issue. it seems to be x only in combo with y... but I could be wrong, would love to know. was thinking... I have a 4th axis... in theory, if I get the gumption... I could swap the drive board between x and a. doubt I'll ever use the a axis anyway... but I'd be taking a chance at bringing the whole thing down by jacking around with it. have to think on it some more. the prospect of being up and running is very tempting.

between steps 3 and 4 there is a very slight angle... and I think it is here that is causing the issue... but admittedly I hadn't watched the coordinates while it was running. Might have to try that. that said... I ran this 3 or 4 times in a row, then did goToZero and we were off by about 1/4". It does seem to move at an angle at step4. It is hard to tell if it's moving at an angle for step 3 because it's so slight. on my old machine I was using the copy of mach3 I got with the machine, but had licensed it legit thru mach3. On the new machine (the one I tested this on) I had downloaded the latest version of mach3 and then licensed it. So I doubt it's an issue with the version... and I suspect many people have been able to cut neck pockets using mach3. I would think I would have heard others with this issue. Maybe these stepper drivers have issues with very small movements? Then it only seems like it's the x. could be that that one driver has a bad chip and is missing steps. I have heard of this issue for others. I really need to pull the thing apart and figure out what drivers these are. If I can get one cheap it'd be worth trying to replace it. That said... I'm aware I could switch x/y axis and do another test... but I'm certain I get the sm result.

so... had set my machine coords, calibrated my x and y and saved the fixture... often when i do this and close out and come back to mach3 mill... my machine is rendered unable to move. just gives a terrible whine from the motors when you try to jog it. it's infuriating. Then you have to replace the .xml file to get things back working... and this resets all the calibration and machine coords I just set. Mach3 works fine after these procedures and only bugs out when you re-open it. I'm sure that's a feature. The "if you want your machine to just scream and not move" feature. that said... I wrote a program to test slight angles and sure enough... breaks it every time. just a simple one pass around a triangle with slight angles and x is off. y seems to maintain. if my understanding is correct... those little commands that would keep the spindle moving at an angle probably are very small bursts of electricity. Those would be more susceptible to emi. I'm hoping anyway. Perhaps the replacing of the cables will fix some of that. as I understand, I will want to run an actual ground wire to the spindle. currently, there are only 3 wires going to it... I think I can wire up the 4th prong to ground, and then on the spindle side I can wire that prong to a lug washer and place it on the mounting screws. Should be getting the wire sometime this week... and a few remaining connectors I need. Next up: adventures in rewiring. TEST_ANGLE_PRECISION.rtf

further, last night I ran a new prog to create a shelf for my pc to sit on with a bunch of slots throughout for airflow... ran it like a champ. no staggered edges... everything is perfect. again, that is all square. I used the sm post process that I used for the neck pocket. No issues.

well, ran them 5 times each and go to z after 5 times each... looks pretty spot on to me. I have a very fine crosshair indicating my zero and I set zero by eye before running (I removed my workpiece finally)... if it is off by any amount it is def not discernable by eye!

right on. I like your enthusiasm. I have a saying that this reminds me of: "I have all my code written... now I just need to get it to work"!! here's to an uneventful first build!!

roger that. will do. was thinking of creating a test... where I try different angles... because I suspect it's the very fine movements that are the problem. 45 deg doesn't seem to pose an issue... my guess is I'd have to try some 5, 2.5 and 1 deg angles and see what shakes. anywho, I will go run these asap. thanks again for the continued help!!

well I can def live with that kind of accuracy!! Honestly, I'd like to get on to running some other things I have planned... but at this point I just don't trust this machine.

yessir... yes, I do realize that .0001 is one tenth of .001 (hehe, couldn't help myself!) wasn't expressing concern about this... that's what it always says when it returns to zero.

.0001 on x and y each time. just faster!!