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You must read this notice: This is a licensed Web site (HTML document and associated files). You must read and agree to be legally bound in contract by the Terms of Use and conditions given in the End User License Agreement ("EULA"), Legal Notices, Instructions, Warnings, Disclaimers, and all other text in "SECTION: 0" of "This Web Site" (HTML document and associated files) before reading or using any of the information, software programs, and or files, contained in, linked to, and or associated with, "This Web Site" (HTML document and associated files). Any use or "Beta Testing" of "This Web Site" constitutes your acknowledgment of your full agreement with the current End User License Agreement ("EULA") and your decision to have this current license supersede all prior and contemporaneous agreements and understandings. Information and files in "This Web Site" (HTML document and associated files) have been placed here so that long time users of "The Author's" programs DANCAD3D.COM (tm) , DANCAM.EXE (tm) , or DANPLOT.EXE (tm) could help proofread the text of the documentation files or screens displayed, and also help test data files, example files, and or any software programs that might be made available from time to time, to aid "The Author" in finding mistakes, bugs, and other errors, omissions, defects, mistakes, and faults. Everything in "This Web Site" (HTML document and associated files) is "Beta Test", "Beta Code", Experimental, Preliminary, requires proofreading, or is being evaluated for possible revision, and is NOT warranted to be free of defect. To help "The Author" report any bugs, foul-ups, defects, or mistakes that you find, see "SECTION: 8" for instructions. "This Web Site" (HTML document and associated files) and all other files and programs by Daniel H. Hudgins are made available "AS IS" without warranty of any kind express, expressed, or implied. All offers and specifications are subject to change or discontinuation without notice of any kind. Please read "SECTION: 8" of "This Web Site" (HTML document and associated files) before trying to contact "The Author."
This documentation section has text mostly about DANCAM.EXE (tm) and DANPLOT.EXE (tm), my CAM programs, and might be looked to for information on some of the CAM program commands. See also the other documentation files, and pages in this Web site, for additional information. The disclaimer and most of the other legal text has been moved to SECTION: 0 , you must read the disclaimer, End User License Agreement (EULA), and other legal text, before you read any of the other documentation or use any part of this HTML document or associated files and programs. Be sure to read all the Warnings in SECTION: 3.2.10.0 , and the other documentation, before running, installing, testing, or using any of my programs, and especially before using DANCAM.EXE (tm) and DANPLOT.EXE (tm).
The text in this section was derived from the CAMPLOT.DOC file that was in the original v2.6 distribution, and has been updated somewhat so that some of the changes made in v2.7 are reflected. It may take me some time to get back to work some more on this section, but you can help proof-read what is here now. Some adjustment may be required for versions prior or subsequent to v2.72 since there are variations between versions and the various revisions of versions.
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Computer controlled automated machines can malfunction for very many reasons. Figuring out what went wrong requires understanding what each component should be doing when the machine would work properly, and then starting at the source of the motion commands and working your way along the chain of events until the problem is isolated. Since many events happen quickly, and different causes can produce the same error, it can be difficult to guess the cause. Please look over this section and all of the other documentation since you are the one that ultimately will have to investigate and figure out what is causing your problems.
Here some steps for trouble shooting with a very incomplete list of some of the things that can go wrong with your automated machine.
Steps to trouble shoot an automated machine:
Read this documentation and look at the program's menus.
Spend a few hours trying to figure out what you did wrong. Many of the problems people have reported so far have been traced to faulty connections, or other hardware problems related to bad wiring.
Check the tool path file for mistakes. You can read the ASCII file line by line by printing the whole file out on your printer, use the DOS command like, COPY MYFILE.ASC PRN, or the equivalent.
Check that the signals are coming out of the computer properly, you can slow the program down, by using the p.w.f. and p.w.f. increaser values, and use a volt meter to count the pulses. Having the software sent pulses too quickly will cause positional errors because the electronics and motors cannot keep up with the motion commands. Try not to be a "speed demon" and use the motor tests built into the software properly. If your machine can only operate reliably at a slow speed as you have built it you will have to use it that way, or improve the design by installing different motors, a higher voltage power supply, changing from stepper to servo motors, changing the pitch of the lead screws, and other such modifications.
Check the wiring coming from the computer to the motor drive electronics. Wires can pick up EMI or RFI coming from the spindle motor and other sources, such interference may make the motors turn even when no signals are coming from the computer. Keep the wiring for each axis separate and shielded, multi-strand cables can transfer signals from one axis' conductor to the other, so that say when the z axis turns you get extra motion on the x or y axis.
The input to your stepper translator or servo drive electronics should have a low pass filter, and or opto-isolators, to filter out EMI and RFI. I have seen older starter type fluorescent lights generate enough RFI to make a stepper motor turn when the light was switched on, adding a proper low pass filter can usually fix such problems. Try putting 1000pf ceramic capacitor from the signal input on the motor driver module to common, 100 ohms in series between the signal wire from the computer and the signal input on the motor driver module, 2200 ohms, i.e. 2.2K ohms, from the signal input on the motor driver module to a pull-up positive five volt source, and bypass the positive five volt end of the 2200 ohm resistor to common through a 0.1mf ceramic capacitor, the leads on the low pass filter components should be less than one half inch, and the filter should be located within a half inch of the motor driver module signal input terminal. Both the step pulse signal and direction signal inputs of the motor driver module should be filtered.
Feed back, usually in the grounding of the common connections, within the drive electronics, or in the power supply and supply wiring, can produce motion errors. The output of the motor drive electronics produces large amounts of EMI and RFI, as well as fluctuations in the supply voltage of the attached power supply. It might be very useful for you to run separate ground wires for the motor coils and for the step pulse and direction signals since the voltage drop on the common ground wires can generate signals large enough to cause sporadic triggering of the step pulse input, or reversal of the direction signal input making the motors step or step the wrong way. These feedback errors can look like lost motor steps caused by running the motors too fast or under too heavy of a load, but may be differentiated from mechanical lost steps by the motors being off position by an odd number of steps, where as the mechanical lost steps puts the motor off by an amount that always relates to the construction of the motor's internal grooves position.
The wires going to the motors and their connections can get insecure, or become broken, due to constant flexing and vibration. Be sure to use the right gauge wiring for the heavy current in the motor coils, and have all connections free of electronic noise so that intermittent loss of connection does not produce a positional error. Keep the wires going to the motor coils away from the signal wires going to and from the computer.
Do not overload the motors which can make the rotor get out of step with the commanded position. Using too small size motors, and trying to run them too fast might be the biggest problem most people have with stepper motors. Remember that stepper motors only produce about one quarter their rated holding torque when running at their maximum useful speed, so if you need 100 in/oz to move your machine you will need about 400 in/oz motors.
The mechanical parts of your machine must be very solid and not slip or otherwise make for positional errors.
Check the values you have entered into the program's configuration menus. You may need to delete the programs and re- install them, then pay very careful attention to what values you enter and change when you configure the programs for your automated machine.
You may need to read books by some other authors, visit other Web sites, take classes, go to the library, ask questions on Usenet or mail lists, and learn new things to find out what you might be doing wrong.
Most problems with your machine will probably not be due to bugs in my programs. If you find an actual bug in my programs that you can repeat several times by doing the same things you can report the perceived bug to me so that I can know about it, but that does not mean that I will be able to fix the bug any time soon, or ever. Be sure that you always have plenty of free disk space because if the programs run out of disk space while operating or creating files you can get many problems and error messages, but these problems might not be considered primary program bugs since they do not show up when the programs have an adequate environment to run in, i.e. how can you expect the program to save a file if there is no disk space to save it in. Do not send money, stamps, or other items to the author when you report bugs, if payment is required for something you might be issued instructions with any reply I might make to you at that time. Carefully read all of SECTION: 8 before you submit a bug report.
Before you submit a bug report form about your problem you should check that you have not accidentally set one of the values in the configuration file improperly. If something does not seem to be working properly go through all the prompts in the configuration menu and check exactly what you have told the program about your machine's dimensions and connections. If that does not work, try erasing all of the CAM program files, including the *.CFG files, re-install the programs from the original distribution, and start the configuration over from scratch.
Do not copy the *.CFG files from one computer to another, you must configure the programs on the machine that they will run on. In versions subsequent to v2.6 there are self calibration commands or procedures that need to be executed after making any changes to the settings in the configuration menus or your machine. Be sure to use the self calibration command in v2.7 and later to adjust the CAM programs to your computer's speed so that the feed rates and other timing will be calibrated for function before you try to execute any tool path files or use the commands that move the motors. Review all the settings and commands that you have configured, or are present, in the version of the programs you are using since there are variations in the required values, and usage, in different versions or revisions.
DANCAD3D (tm)'s backlash compensation works by adding a fixed number of steps to the motor's movement when the motors' direction reverses. If you are going to use a dial gauge to test the movement of the tool from DANCAM.EXE (tm)'s or DANPLOT.EXE (tm)'s Jog command, and the backlash compensation is set to a value of zero in the configuration, the first move will give a false reading since the nut was not tight against the lead screw. So you should always move the tool some distance in one direction to take up the backlash before zeroing the dial gauge and Jog the tool in the same direction a few times to get a true reading when you reverse the direction. You can measure the amount of backlash in your machine by reversing direction, after going some distance in one direction, and moving one step at a time until the tool begins to move backwards, i.e. when the needle on the dial gauge reverses. In other words you go one way so that the needle is moving the same amount for each step pulse, you then reverse direction and will notice that the needle does not move the same amount or stands still, you continue moving in reverse until the needle on the gauge moves the same step amount on each step backwards, this distance that the gauge needle stood still is the backlash distance, which will probably be different on each axis of your machine. Since the dial gauge's needle is standing still while you measure the backlash, you would read the "distance" the motors needed to move before the gauge's needle started to move backwards off of the Jog command's scratch value DRO display, i.e. press [S] in the Jog command to zero the scratch distance measurement before you reverse direction.
When running the motor tests the backlash compensation should be off, set to 0, so you can keep track of where the motor starts and stops. This may be automatic in some versions, so do not wonder why the backlash compensation is disabled in the motor tests.
In order for the automatic backlash compensation to work when a tool path file is executed you must set the home position value outside the working area of the tool, i.e. the home point is at the extreme margin of the machines working area in all axis. The tool cannot, i.e. should not, go "behind" or past the home position. The tool should be jogged into the home position such that the backlash will be "in front" of the tool as it moves from home to the first point in the tool path file. The first thing DANCAM.EXE (tm) or DANPLOT.EXE (tm) will do when executing a tool path is to take up the backlash. When you use the automatic home up to the home switches at the start of the execution of each tool path file, the tool will automatically be positioned to start properly for the backlash compensation since the motors stop at the end of executing the previous tool path file while moving away from the work area.
If you need to position the tool manually at some point other than the point where the machine would normally home up, remember to move the tool away from the location of the first point in the tool path file by an amount grater than the amount of the backlash in all three axis.
An alternative to starting the tool from a position other than the home switch home position, is to use the tool Adjust position command after the tool path file has started to be executed.
You can also just make adjustments to the centering of the tool path file on the work-piece in your machine by loading the tool path file into the CAD programs and use the Offset command to adjust the relation of the points in the tool path file to the automated machine's configured home switch position.
The CAM programs have two kinds of ramping, only one of which would normally be used at a time depending on if you are using stepper motors or servo motors to operate your automated machine. The basic ramping starts the motors at a slow speed and accelerates up to the maximum speed set by the pull-in p.w.f. or the current selected feed rate whichever is slower. The basic ramping is mostly for use with servo motors to give the motor control module time to accelerate and decelerate the servo motor so the motor can keep up with the rate of step pulse signals coming from the computer. The overdrive ramping is for use with stepper motors during rapid movements to speed up the motors to speeds above the stepper motors maximum pull-in speed. The overdrive ramping would not normally be used with servo motors, since the basic ramping would already be set to run the servo motors at their maximum speed by the pull-in p.w.f. and the overdrive p.w.f. would need to be set to the same value as the pull-in p.w.f. to avoid having the computer send step pulses faster than the servo motor and servo motor driver module could keep up with.
In general the basic ramping below the maximum speed set by the pull-in p.w.f. should not be used with stepper motors, except perhaps to reduce vibration caused by frequent rapid starting and stopping of the motors. If you have a problem with to much inertia load on your stepper motors you should re-design your machine to use lighter materials.
If the basic ramping below the maximum speed set by the pull-in p.w.f. is used with stepper motors, do not decrease the p.w.f. value from that p.w.f value for each axis which you would use for your motors without the basic ramping being on. In other words, using the basic ramping below the maximum speed set by the pull-in p.w.f. value will not allow you to make stepper motors go any faster, it just might reduce shaking and vibration somewhat. The value of the pull-in p.w.f. should never be smaller than the value that works properly when you use the start and stop motor testing utility in the CAM programs.
When the basic ramping is used with servo motors you will need to use the Jog command to test the ramping rate, by selecting a line color for the maximum feed rate and Jogging the machine from one end to the other in one movement. The servo control electronics should have some option for display of the servo position error while the motor is running, if so you can use that display to judge how much position error you get at different ramping rates, i.e. as the motor accelerates and decelerates the servo motor control circuit will report greater errors when the ramping rate is quicker, and will report less error when the ramping rate is slower. You will need to select the quickness of the basic ramping based on how much positional error you can tolerate for the type of work your machine will be doing. Since servo motors "always" stop at the right point you cannot use the fact that the servo motor ends at the right point as a test for the setting of the ramping rate, you need some way to know the position error while the motor is turning, i.e. the encoder position error count. In some servo motor driver circuits the position error is available as a voltage output that you might look at on an oscilloscope, in other circuits there might be a digital counter that you can monitor the value in to check the positional error from one instant to another.
Since the overdrive ramping speeds stepper motors above their "safe" pull-in speed, any interruption to the step pulses coming from the computer will probably cause the stepper motors to stall or get off of the commanded position. If you need to pause the motors while they are making rapid movements above their safe pull-in speed by means of the overdrive ramping you need to press the [Ctrl] or [Control] key on the computer's keyboard to decelerate and ramp down the motors to a stop, otherwise any other method of pausing the stepper motors will probably cause the stepper motors to stall and or get off of their commanded position. Once the stepper motors get off of their commanded position you will need to re-home the machine and execute the tool path file over again if you want to finish the tool path file.
If you do not want to have the overdrive ramping active, and so you want to avoid the potential problems associated with operating the stepper motors above their safe pull-in speed, you should set the value for the overdrive p.w.f. for each axis to the same value as the safe value that you find works for the regular pull-in p.w.f. by using the start and stop motor test utility.
Testing of both kinds of motor speed ramping needs to be done by using the Jog command to be able to have the motors move a large enough distance for the speed to ramp up to the plateau maximum speed. The motion type needs to be selected in the configuration feed rate table for the various line colors. To test the ramping in the Jog command you need to select the line color that will select the Jog feed rate and motion type that you want to test. In order to test the basic ramping in the Jog command the line color selected for the Jog feed rate must have been set up for a feed rate faster than the maximum speed of your motors and movement of the Linear motion type. In order to test the overdrive ramping in the Jog command the line color selected for the Jog feed rate must have been set up for a feed rate faster than the maximum overdrive speed of your motors and movement of the Rapid motion type. The motion type Best will select Rapid motion type for straight movements where one axis moves at a time, or all of the axis move the same number of steps, and such. The motion type Best will select Linear motion type when movements are for having the various axis each move a different number of steps, and such.
The pulse rate multiplier in option #1 of the CAM program configuration root sub-menu should be set to send 1 pulse per step when normal stepper translator modules are used. Since micro-stepper and servo motor driver modules have a position counter in them they might be able to accept several pulses at once and adjust the motor speed to the average rate of pulses received. The idea of the rate multiplier is to speed up servo motors that have excess resolution by reducing the resolution to only what is needed, i.e. each bunch of pulses the computer makes per step turns the motor more than a single pulse would so the motor turns faster. By using the pulse rate multiplier you might be able to get servo motors up to thousands of RPM or faster and still have a resolution of 0.001" at the tool.
If you accidentally set the rate multiplier to some number other than 1 your normal 200 or 400 step per revolution stepper motors will not turn properly (or at all) unless you use a number that is a multiple of the step cycle value (i.e. the step cycle value would usually be 4 for full stepping or 8 for half stepping) plus one, since the translator will rotate through the motor phases rapidly before stopping on one of the possible positions. If you need to mix stepper and servo motors the rate multiplier might be able to be set to a number like 5, 9, or 13 (4+1, (2*4)+1, or (3*4)+1), the stepper motor would only make 1 step per pulse bunch and the servo motor would make 5, 9, or 13 steps. You might also be able to use a number like 3, 7, or 11, but the stepper motor would have reverse motion, i.e. 4-1, (2*4)-1, (3*4)- 1.
The p.w.f. increaser in option #1 of the CAM program configuration root sub-menu should be set to a value larger than one when the p.w.f. value for any of the axis is larger than about twenty thousand. The p.w.f. increaser slows down the computer's rate of pulse generation so that the rate of the step pulses sent to your motor driver modules are not too fast and thereby might allow faster computers to be used with slower motors.
The p.w.f. increaser would generally just be set to one for computers such as 8088 4.7MHz to 80286 20MHz, but for faster computers the maximum pull-in p.w.f. value may not be large enough to slow down the rate of the step pulses being sent from your computer so that stepper motors cannot keep up, and therefore the stepper motors will stall. To extend the ability of the overdrive p.w.f. and the pull-in p.w.f. values to slow down the computer's generation of the step pulses the p.w.f. increaser value can be used. You will need to experiment with the value of the p.w.f. increaser to find the right value for your particular combination of computer speed and motor speed range. For computers from 500MHz to about 1GHz the p.w.f. increaser value would range from about 50 to 250 depending on how fast your stepper or servo motors can turn.
If you are using Micro steppers or Servo motors you may not need to use a p.w.f. increaser value that is as large as you would use for regular full step or half step stepper motor drivers.
You would normally not use the p.w.f. increaser to slow down the rate of the step pulses, at the same time that you would use the pulse rate multiplier to increase the pulses, except perhaps for some unusual applications where some of the machine axis are operated by stepper motors and other machine axis are operated by micro steppers or servo motors. In other words, when the pulse rate multiplier is set to a value larger than one the p.w.f. increaser should be set to a value of one, and when the p.w.f. increaser is set to a value larger than one the pulse rate multiplier should be set to a value of one.
If the p.w.f. increaser value is set to too small of a value your stepper motors will not turn, or may just move a little and make some faint noises during the motor testing utilities. If the p.w.f. increaser value is set to too large of a value then your motors may move very slowly or may not seem to turn at all because they are moving so very slowly and it takes minutes for a single step. Try setting the pull-in p.w.f. (pulse width factor) value to about 2000 for each axis, and setting the p.w.f. increaser to about 150 to 250, then test the stepper motors, if they turn at all, reduce the p.w.f. increaser until you get the motors moving near their pull-in stall speed for their size, i.e. about 60 RPM for large motors to 240 RPM for small motors.
Do not set the pull-in p.w.f. or overdrive p.w.f. value to zero when testing the p.w.f. increaser, you should try to use p.w.f. values of around 2000 when the p.w.f. increaser has a value of two or more, otherwise set the p.w.f. increaser to one and just adjust the maximum pull-in speed with the pull-in p.w.f. value.
Since the overdrive p.w.f. for rapid movements might be as little as a forth of the pull-in p.w.f. value, and you want the overdrive p.w.f. to be in the range of about 500 to 2000 you would want to keep the pull-in p.w.f. value around 1000 to 4000 generally. So use p.w.f. increaser values larger than one when you need to in order to keep the p.w.f. values in these ranges for operating regular full step or half step stepper motors, e.g. do not set the p.w.f. to 10 and the p.w.f. increaser to 1000, the pull-in p.w.f. for each axis should generally be set to a value larger than the p.w.f. increaser value.
Since my CAM programs can produce such very fast step pulse rates on fast computers you may need to use the p.w.f. increaser even when using servo motors and servo motor drivers, that offer as much as 1000 or more steps per revolution, to slow down the maximum rate of the step pulses. The values of the p.w.f. increaser used with servo motors will probably be smaller than the values you would use with stepper motors operating in full or half step mode since the servo motors can turn faster and generally have more steps per revolution. With a large 200 step stepper motor that has a maximum speed of 30 RPM you would need 100 step pulses per second, but with a servo motor capable of 4000 steps per revolution and 1800 RPM you would need 120000 step pulses per second, so you can see that such CAM software needs quite a large range of adjustment to accommodate such wide variations.
The values you use for the p.w.f. increaser and the pulse rate multiplier will need to be selected depending on the maximum speed of the particular computer you are using with your automated machine, and the maximum speed that your automated machine can be operated at, as one or the other may be faster or slower than the other.
Be sure that you use the automatic self calibration command in v2.7 of my CAM programs' configuration sub-menu to calibrate the programs to the computer they will be running on so that the feed rates and other timing will be calibrated to the configuration settings. Both programs need to be separately calibrated, each program one at a time. You must calibrate the programs to your computer before you execute any tool path files or use any of the commands that operate the motors such as the Jog, teach, or replicate modes. In general the power to the motors should be off while the self calibration command operates.
My CAM programs may be able to use your computer's parallel port, Joy-stick or game port, and serial ports. Because these ports are being used in some non-standard ways you may need to deal with some unfamiliar issues in order to have things function.
Since the pins on your parallel port, used for the auxiliary relay outputs and various signal inputs, can be used in different ways you should make sure that all the prompts in the configuration menu agree as to what should happen at those various pins on your parallel port! In other works do not use one of the pins for two functions that cannot be used at the same time.
If you use auxiliary relay outputs C and D to pull up the switch inputs then the auxiliary relay outputs C and D will need to be set to default high, so that the pins for relay outputs C and D will always put out the 3 to 5 volts needed for the switch signal pin input pull-up resistors.
If you have a 5 volt supply for the switch input pin pull-up resistors, do not use the auxiliary relay outputs C and D to pull up the switch inputs, and you should probably set the C and D outputs to default low.
If you use auxiliary relays A and B in DANPLOT.EXE (tm) for the C axis then the auxiliary relays A and B should be set to default to TTL logic low and have the auxiliary relay state change (hi/low) toggle line colors set to color numbers that will not be used in the tool path file.
The auxiliary input pin on the parallel port is used by DANCAM.EXE (tm) for the connection to the replicate mode scanning probe signal, and by DANPLOT.EXE (tm) for the connection to the C axis home switch, so you will need to make a provision in your wiring to switch or reconnect the auxiliary input pin on the parallel port for the use of the particular program being used.
Your parallel port may not put out enough voltage to trigger solid state relays. In such a case a pull up resistor of about 2.2K or 2200 ohms at 0.25 watt would be needed on the auxiliary relay outputs of the parallel port to pull the outputs up to a 5 volt supply. If the pull-up resistor is not enough to get your solid state relay to work, you might try using a TTL chip such as a part number 7407 with a 330 ohm 0.5 watt pull- up resistor on the 7407's O.C. (open collector) output to amplify the signal from the parallel port and give more current to the solid state relay's control input terminal.
If you are using the Joy-Stick port(s) also check to be sure that what you entered in the configuration matches what and where you have your connections hooked up to. Some Joy-Stick boards, such as those the come on multi-I/O boards only have one Joy-Stick port rather than the two ports that other Joy- stick or game port boards have, and so features that use both Joy-Stick ports will not work properly on a board that only has one port available. If your Joy-Stick port supports two Joy- Sticks you can connect both a Joy-Stick and a hand-wheel encoder and alternate between using one or the other by use of the keyboard command that toggles the hand-wheel encoder on or off, when the hand-wheel encoder is toggled off the Joy-Stick becomes usable.
If your game port, i.e. Joy-Stick port, is on your computer's sound board, the game port may not be enabled for use without running a software driver. Normally when your computer boots under Windows 95 (tm) the drivers for your sound board are loaded, thereby enabling the game port. However, when you boot your computer by using DOS or a "DOS 95" floppy disk you may need to make an AUTOEXEC.BAT or CONFIG.SYS file on your boot floppy disk that is set up to load or run the sound board's driver that will enable the game port. If the driver for the sound board takes too much of the DOS memory you may not be able to use that driver, and therefore you might not be able to use the game port on your sound board with my programs. If the driver for your sound board is small enough to fit into the available memory with my programs you should be able to read the sound board's game port enabling driver directly off of your harddisk by using the correct drive letter and path for the location of the driver file in your AUTOEXEC.BAT or CONFIG.SYS file on the special boot floppy disk. The reason you would want to boot your computer from a floppy disk is to avoid the multi-tasking version of Windows 95 (tm) from loading in its normal way, in order to possibly help the CAM programs function better.
If you have problems with the game port in your sound board working you may be able to use one of the older separate game port cards, and disable the game port in your sound board. To disable the game port in your sound board you may need to change a jumper setting, cut a special foil link, or edit the command line parameters associated with the sound card's drivers. Since newer computers do not have ISA card slots you may have difficulties installing an older game port card that might work well otherwise.
The CAM program computer network accesses the serial ports directly generally without using the DOS or BIOS calls. You need to be sure that the jumpers on the serial port boards are set to unique port addresses and appropriate interrupt values, otherwise one serial port may duplicate the settings of another serial port, and cause problems or interference. Up to eight serial ports are supported in v2.7, but since the BIOS does not generally support that many serial ports you need to configure the port address and other values for the extra serial ports manually in the CAM programs computer network set up sub-menu. Normal serial port boards do not have address adjustments for more than four serial ports, but some special non-standard serial port boards may allow extra port address settings. If you take serial port boards out of one computer and put them into another computer you will need to check the jumper settings so that the ports are all set to different values.
If you find that your automated machine is not moving to the positions you think it should by means of operation by the CAM programs you will need to isolate the portion of the system that is contributing the positional error so that you can try to make corrections.
Separate any problems you are having into three groups:
Problems that are caused by DANCAM.EXE (tm) or DANPLOT.EXE (tm).
Problems that are caused by the electronics.
Problems that are caused by the mechanical parts.
If you are sure that you have configured DANCAM.EXE (tm) and DANPLOT.EXE (tm) properly you should initially assume that the positional error is due to electronic or mechanical causes.
If you can get the motors to come back to their starting point when you do the motor test #2, i.e. the start and stop motor test, in DANCAM.EXE (tm) or DANPLOT.EXE (tm) then the software and the motor driver electronics are probably working, and therefore the problem is probably with your mechanical system.
If the motors fail the start and stop test then you need to isolate the cause. Failure of the start and stop test is indicated by marking the motor shaft and the face of the motor near the shaft before doing the test, and the marks made not aligning as they did before the test after the test has finished.
There are several possible causes of failure of the start and stop motor test:
You have the p.w.f. to small, so the pulses are not wide enough. Enter a larger p.w.f. and test again. Check the values entered for the overdrive p.w.f, the p.w.f. increaser, and the pulse rate multiplier.
You have electrical noise (E.M.I, R.F.I.) triggering your translator modules. Try to isolate the source of electronic interference, separate the step pulse and direction wires from the motor coil wires. Add low pass filters (or opto-isolators) on the step pulse and direction signal inputs of your motor translator driver modules.
Your motor translator driver modules may be defective, or you have a lose connection with your power or motor coil wires. If you connect the motor wires wrong to your driver modules the motor will not turn properly or will turn reverse of the desired direction.
You have too much or too little current going through the motors. The motors will not work unless you have the coil current set properly. You may need to use larger or smaller resistors to limit the motor coil current, or you may need to adjust the motor current setting on the motor driver module.
You have too little friction on the motor. The motors will resonate at certain speeds if you do not have enough friction in the load, and or have too much inertia. Try reducing the low speed motor current if you have excess torque.
Your motors are overloaded. Use larger motors.
You have the step pulse and direction or common wires reversed or otherwise hooked up to the wrong places. Many weird things can happen if you connect wires in the wrong places, or have an insecure connection or broken wire. For instance if you have the direction signal from one axis and the step signal from another accidentally connected to a single motor the motion of the machine would not work properly, especially when you try to reverse direction.
You forgot to connect the common wires to all the necessary points. Use separate ground wires going back to a common point.
Your Hook-up does not correspond to how you set up the configuration menus, so signals are not going to the right pins. Go over all of the values in the configuration sub-menu and check for any conflicting or incorrect entries.
Your tool path line colors do not match the various color code numbers selected in the CAM program's configuration sub-menu, so the various signals are going to the wrong parallel port pins, or are not being activated at all. Write down what tool path line color should do what, and stick to that assignment in the configuration and while you draw your tool path files.
When the problem is with the stepper motor torque being too weak (or the p.w.f value being to fast), the stepper motor will normally jump to a multiple of 4 whole full steps off the proper position. If electrical interference is involved then the stepper motor will be off any number of steps.
The type of electronics used to drive the motors will effect the performance of the motors. If you can not get medium size stepper motors over about 100 RPM you have probably done something wrong or are using badly designed equipment. With stepper motors the supply voltage needs to be high enough to keep the motor torque from dropping below one quarter of the motors holding torque at useful speeds. If the stepper motor does not produce its rated holding torque when it is stopped then you need to adjust the stepper motor driver's current regulation and or the voltage supplied.
Please do not modify the circuits suggested until you check out the circuit the way the circuit has been designed. If you change something without checking out the circuit as given you will not know if it would have worked if left alone, or it was your change that caused the problem. Do not Hook-up or build circuits that you do not fully understand, since you would not be able to proof-read the circuit for mistakes. Substituting parts can result in circuits not working, even though you think the parts are equivalent, so try to use the parts specified.
People who are not well experienced in building electronic circuits may not realize that the various types of components produced that have the same values may not operate the same way in all circuits. If a circuit specifies a ceramic capacitor and you substitute a plastic type you may get problems since the resistance of different types of capacitor may be different at different frequencies even though they are rated with the same values. Such differences may be subtle or may only cause problems under special circumstances, so if you think your part substitution worked in one case you may be surprised to find that it might not work in another environment or situation. If things are not working properly make sure that all of the parts are of the correct type.
If you can see that the motor shaft comes back to the proper position when the start and stop test is done then any problem with the position of the tool is probably caused by your mechanical parts and probably not by the software or electronics. Perhaps the only way to reliably know if the motor shaft is in the proper position is to mark the motor shaft and the face of the motor and look at the marks directly or with a close-up lens and video camera zoomed in on the marks. If you look at the movement of the tool relative to the work-piece rather than the movement of motor itself you cannot tell if the motor is in the correct position, or not, since there are mechanical components between the motor and the tool or work-piece. For example, if you use a dial gauge to measure the movement of the cross slide on a lathe to see if the Jog command is moving the tool to the correct position, and you find a positional error, you do not know if the motor moved to the correct position, which would indicate that the CAM program and electronics had been actually working properly, since you did not look at the motor's movements, you might then fumble around with the software and electronics when the problem was actually in the mechanical components. You should not take the motors out of your machine for testing normally since you usually want the motors to be fully loaded while they are being tested.
On many older computers my programs should probably work well enough to be used to some extent, and your problems with the tool being out of position, and such, will probably be due to non-software factors. You will have to trace out your wiring and do your own tests and checks with regard to non-software problems. My programs may not work on some computers because of hardware, operating system, operating system version, BIOS, CPU, mother board, harddisk, video card, hardware conflicts, bad port boards, bad port connectors, memory, and any number of other problems, and so you may need to try using my programs on some other computer if they do not work on the first computer that you try them on.
In other words, do not assume all problems with your automated machine are caused by software bugs, there are many things that can cause similar looking problems. Be sure that you are using the latest version of the programs available to you so that if any bugs have been fixed you do not still have the version with them in it.