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Jack Puddin
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Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: USA
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Need A Bit Of Help Getting The 4th Axis On My CNC Working.

08/07/2014 4:44 PM

I have a YooCNC 6040 and have been using it for over a year now with no real large issues. (plenty of little things always popping up) I ordered it with the 4th axis option and simply never bothered to get it working. Well I decided that I wanted to make myself some solid silver D20's and wanted to use the 4th axis to carve them out, but have found myself running into issues,
I am using Mach3 mill to run the machine and it runs the XYZ axis' perfectly. It simply doesn't move the a axis stepper motor. I double checked the motor tuning for the 4th axis and tweaked to no avail. The motor feels like it is locked when I try to turn it by hand(ie. getting power) The motor is also getting warm indicating that it is holding it's position as it should. Just not jogging when told to move although the position indicator in Mach3 mill shows that it is turning.

I can open Mach3 turn and the 4th axis turns just fine and as it should. The issue with Mach3 turn is that it limits you to only 2 axis instead of 4. Which is odd to me as I would think that to do anything productive you would want at least 3. Either way I digress, By opening mach3 turn it does prove that the controller and motor is functional.

Would anyone familiar with Mach3 mill know of any quirks that may cause this or may know of some other things I could look at or test?

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SolarEagle
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Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: by the beach in Florida
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#1

Re: Need a bit of help getting the 4th axis on my CNC working.

08/07/2014 5:16 PM

Evidently there are numerous complaints about the quality of the controller, and a Gecko G540 is recommended as a replacement.....

http://www.cnczone.com/forums/chinese-machines/157193-experience-carving-cnc-com-6040-router.html

http://www.geckodrive.com/geckodrive-step-motor-drives/g540.html

http://www.ebay.com/itm/CNC-Gecko-G540-Stepper-Motor-Driver-/160676355589

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rrnut-2
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Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: New Hampshire
Posts: 106
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#2

Re: Need A Bit Of Help Getting The 4th Axis On My CNC Working.

08/08/2014 8:49 AM

Your using Mach 3, so go here and ask questions.

http://www.machsupport.com/help-learning/artsoft-mach-support-forums/

Also, if the Mach 3 license is valid, Newfangled Solutions will help you. They are the developers of Mach 3.

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BruceFlorida
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Join Date: Jul 2008
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#3

Re: Need A Bit Of Help Getting The 4th Axis On My CNC Working.

08/08/2014 12:52 PM

Just standard troubleshooting comments:

Can you (have you) swapped cables/boards/modules/motors and isolated which cable/board/module/motor is not working properly?

If you don't have something mechanical that would stop you then you should be able to feed x or y wires to the 4th axis and watch it spin round and round.

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Jack Puddin
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Join Date: Mar 2009
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Posts: 38
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#4

Re: Need A Bit Of Help Getting The 4th Axis On My CNC Working.

08/08/2014 1:47 PM

I did happen upon that forum thread a while back and my control board is a different model than the ones they listed there. While still possibly being the issue I simply don't have the cash to get and upgrade like that. Either way my hope is to at the very least nail down the issue.

@rmut-2

I know I could hit other forums but I like this site and the crowd :)

@bruceflorida

I know that the controller and the stepper is working as they should as when remapping the axis or opening mach3 turn i can get it to turn just fine.

Overall my main goal is to simply nail down the issue. It very well could be a limitation of my control board but it doesn't seem to be leading to that as the case. I am hoping that someone who knew a bit about machines such as this would be able to provide any troubleshooting steps that I may have missed or not thought of.

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SolarEagle
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#5
In reply to #4

Re: Need A Bit Of Help Getting The 4th Axis On My CNC Working.

08/08/2014 10:26 PM

What controller do you have? are you sure it's a 4 axis controller?

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SimpleMind
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#6

Re: Need A Bit Of Help Getting The 4th Axis On My CNC Working.

08/10/2014 4:17 PM

It probably is some simple configuration conflict at "ports and pins" or "general config" page involving 4th axis. Look for ANY 4th axis setting differences to other axis. It should be something easy to spot. And, there's always the customer support. Unless of course you are... papa Fabio. S.M.

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Jack Puddin
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#7

Re: Need A Bit Of Help Getting The 4th Axis On My CNC Working.

08/10/2014 5:33 PM

Aye I had the wrong pins mapped out. Should have been 2 and 3 instead of 8 and 9 on the parallel port.
I also wanted to add something else here for anyone else needing the info. ( I came up on my thread here on google when trying to search this info out.) For the motor tuning on the 4th axis for this machine: Steps/ = 10 velocity = 400 acceleration = 100 steps pulse = 3 step dir = 2
After I was able to get the motor working it took me a long while and a few pieces of scrap to get the gear ratio down to 2.25:1

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Users who posted comments:

BruceFlorida (1); Jack Puddin (2); rrnut-2 (1); SimpleMind (1); SolarEagle (2)

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