[pb4ugo]

I bought a used Minitech Mill2 and it did not come with much in the way of troubleshooting materials. I downloaded Mach 3 to control it. I have the parallel port hooked to my PC, the motor board hooked to the functioning power supply, and the control box plugged in. The spindle is plugged into the control box and runs, so power is making it there. The cooling fan turns on in the box when the power supply is turned on, so power is live there as well. After opening Mach and using the manual control screen (tab button) to test the movement, I'm left with nothing. No stepper motor movement, sound, nothing.

I am a total newb to this, so please help in laymen's terms. I don't know what to do to get this going!

[DonFrambach]

I strongly suggest that you call Jack at Minitech. His website is: http://www.minitech.com He can get you going.

Good luck!

[Fixittt]

hey there, first thing ya need to do is relax. this will happen.
go here
www.minitech.com/support and download the mach3 that already has the ports and pins ect setup. you may have to play with motor tuning ect but first things first.

Do you have yahoo messenger?

*EDIT* I work closely with Jack on certain problems i am sure he is out of pocket right now, so I will gladly help you.

[Fixittt]

NOTES: with the minitech link I gave you, you can download not only the motion control software, but also the pdf documentation for the mill. It needs to be noted that the motion control software download is the demo version of mach 3 with the needed setup. if you own the license to mach3 it needs to be copied into the directory or it will limit you.
I am open for some phone support if needed PM me for my phone number.

[pb4ugo]

Well I downloaded the Minitech version of Mach3 and this time was greeted by a clicking sound when trying to move the x-axis. Y & Z remained non-functional.

Thanks for the links, I hadn't seen that on the Minitech site before. I tried e-mailing them a couple weeks ago, but did not get a response. I'm reading through the whole thing presently.

[Fixittt]

Jack at minitech is a very busy man. Small operation........

a couple of questions.....
is the computer that mach3 is installed on, is it a dedicated computer for the machine or does it have alot of software installed on it?
There is a test program in the mach3 directory. its called driver test.exe run this program. After running the test the line on the screen should be near flat. if it spikes alot then you may have to find another pc with a clean install of windows xp for a dedicated control.

[pb4ugo]

It is not a dedicated computer, I wanted to test the machine first. I can't find the driver test.exe you speak of. ???

Thanks for all the help.

[fretsman]

It's in the Mach 3 folder on your C drive. You may want to do the optimizations if you're using XP as well but the Mach webpages are down at the moment.

[Fixittt]

may sound like a dumb question but I have to ask, this is on a windows XP computer and not a vista os right?

[Fixittt]

here is one of the many windows xp optimization files that I know of. Dont do this on your daily computer as some of the services that are disabled you may need for your daily computing needs.

9 times out of 10 you can get away with just a clean install of windows and disable the power management, screen saver ect. Of course you need a fast enough pc. I am running mine on a amd 2100+ which is about a 1.7 ghz processor. My video card is lacking so I disable the tool path screen. Also a ample amount of ram is a good thing.

[pb4ugo]

Yes, it's XP home edition.

I found the DriverTest. When I open it, a small box pops up and disappears too quickly for me to read, and nothing else happens.

[Fixittt]

interesting, do you have any printers installed to the printer port?

[Fixittt]

when you installed mach3 you did installed the pulsing driver when it promted you right? Also did you reboot after the install?

[fretsman]

What version are you running, click "help" then "about Mach 3 controller".

Also, did you restart after you installed mach 3 BEFORE you used it?

[pb4ugo]

Yes, I have a printer hooked up, it's on a usb port. I fully plan on a dedicated machine very soon, but is that much computing power required just to run the axes via arrows? I want to make sure the machine is fully operational before buying a dedicated computer.

[pb4ugo]

It's version R3.041 just installed today. Yes, I restarted before use.

I don't remember a specific prompt about a pulsing driver, but I installed the full thing agreeing to everything along the way.

[Fixittt]

reboot your pc and try the drivertest.exe again. The usb printer "SHOULDNT" effect it but it could I guess.

[Fixittt]

in the device manager there should be a "mach X pulsing engine" as hardware.
the pc specs are required because mach3 uses pulse outputs to the printer port. to jog, no you should require much. but if your machine is not "CLEAN" it will interfere with the pulses

[fretsman]

Yes, I have a printer hooked up, it's on a usb port. I fully plan on a dedicated machine very soon, but is that much computing power required just to run the axes via arrows? I want to make sure the machine is fully operational before buying a dedicated computer.

The problem is depending on what you're running on your PC, Mach doesn't like it and that's why the optimization steps can sometimes be necesary. I have to run it or else I get buzzing and grinding sounds through my steppers and it just doesn't work correctly.

Weird that the driver test is not working though, it works perfectly for me and I have the same version as you.

[Fixittt]

i just ran the driver test on my internet (Dailey use pc) and even with alot of stuff running and all my crap installed i got a descent pulse stream. its a old p4 3 gig 2 gig ram.