Topics

1

SmartBOB controllers and dedicated accessories / Is PDMX still in Business

« on: July 26, 2021, 11:04:48 PM »

Greeting from  a PDMX BOB and Mach 4
Is PDMX still in business?
I have written them with issues I am having with PDMX 416 BOB and Mach 4 but no replies.
Having "motion Under Run", lost packets , lost communication and issues with calibrating my DM556 drivers for accurate axis movement.
Has any one had replies from anyone at PDMX in recent as 2021.
Thanks

2

SmartBOB controllers and dedicated accessories / 3 identical axis drivers

« on: May 02, 2018, 08:47:48 PM »

Not sure where to begin, but I have 3 identical axis drivers that were working just fine. I was building a new CNC  router and I needed 1 driver for test my build , so I took the driver from my {"X" axis and put it on a identical motor setup only on "Z" axis . I tried my machine out all was just waiting for the replacement. When new Driver of again same brand as I had , came in I put it on the newer machine. And put the one I took off of older CNC, and reinstated it back on "X" axis . Put setting back as they were prior to removing driver and loaded Mach 4. put machine in manual mode with Mach 4 and tried "X" axis and low and behold it would not work. Made sure "X" axis drive screw was not free with power on driver and all was well with that, put Enable pin to ground and that released motor so I could turn screw by hand. So that was good. So I swapped motor wires and with "Y axis and had "Y" axis driver control "X" motor and no problem , so that eliminated wiring problem with "X" axis so then I swapped only pulse and direction wires on my pmdx controller and had output of motion board's "X" output control "Y" axis again no issue, So that ruled out PMDX board. So I took  the driver on "X" axis back off and placed it on new machine I was building but with a different motion board and that driver worked just fine. So I put new Driver On old machine put switches on driver where they needed to be and connected a know working driver back to my older machine, and same condition, no "X" axis movement. So I am at the end of my  knowledge about this and have come to forum for ideas. Now remember wiring checked out and was verified by using "Y" axis driver and pmdx board. The know good driver was verified on new machine and works well but again different motion board. And what was good driver on "X" was swapped with new machine and works just fine. All motion pulse and directions outputs were swapped and worked just fine when controlling "Z" and "Y" but nothing works when "X" is connected to any driver I have tried. 5 of them all together and all failed on "X" and when swapped with "Y" then "Y" does not work and when swapped with "Z" then "Z" does not work. BUT ALL DRIVERS WORK WITH NEW MACHINE WITH DIFFERENT MOTION CONTROLLER.

3

SmartBOB controllers and dedicated accessories / Stepper Motor Config

« on: January 17, 2017, 02:20:11 PM »

I am having an issue getting my motors rev/in correct. I am using Windows 10 and all of the software is updated. My Stepper drivers are all working and rated for 4 amps and my steppers are NEMA 23 23HS41-1804S . I have calculated that with my lead screw being a 3/8-8 4 start and my driver set at 8 microsteps that 3200 should be correct for this motor. My Steppers are standard 1.8 degrees/step and 200 steps/Rev.
I have use the MDI in Mach4 to issue a series of G)X commands in both travel directions. And none of the moves equal the program distance .
Eg: MDI is G0X0.500 or G0-X0.500 the screen says X axis moved .500 inches but actual travel was .411" and if I set Steps/Rev to get distance closer then displayed distance is not even close to right. It is the same issue with all of the motors. I have also noticed that it does not do the same thing if I shut down Mach4 and restart the program. I have had "Y" axis work dead on but not "X" and then all of the sudden neither axis works right , shut down Mach4 and restart and "Y" starts working correctly. Can the issue be Windows 10 and the Mach4 software or Windows 10 and the 422 controller board driver?
Need a little help here
Bob