John Rutledge
12-30-2013, 06:31 PM
SB v2.38 running in DOS on pentium machine. Vexta 266-02A Steppers Cable drive. I bought this for $300 from a guy in Austin who inherited it when he bought a business and had no idea how it worked and said it had been suspended up in the rafters unused for six years. I figured @ that price I couldn't get hurt too bad especially when splitting it with a buddy. Anyway, after four months of sitting in my buddies garage his wife got sick of it and he backed out. So the machine has been moved twice that I know of and I'm having trouble getting it going right.
Here are the issues I've run into so far:
1. The X was stalling and looked to be racking so I checked the rails for parallel. They were out as much as 3/16" so I adjusted them to within 1/32nd and diagonally within 1/8th for square. I also adjusted the parallelism cables for equal tension. It still stalls so my question is: Are those acceptable tolerances?
2. I tested the machine and the initial X travel was off by 6.375" but when calibrated it was within .25 inches over 71" of travel. Clearly not right, but better than it was. The Y is a different story. The Gantry is parallel within 1/16th but the stepper stalls quite a bit and over 48" it loses 9.5" traveling away and loses only 5.125" returning which causes it to hit the stop. This result is fairly repeatable within .25". I noticed that while against the stop and no longer traveling, the counter for the Y axis continued to tick down to zero. Does this indicate a problem with the encoder or does SB 2.38 count drive pulses to give that reading?
3. Diagnostic test on the encoder when looking at the stream goes as follows: 333332222000001111333332222000001111 etc. I noticed there are Five 3s in a row followed by Four 2s, Five 0s, Four 1s. I have no experience with this kind of equipment and no documentation with which to compare any of the diagnostics output and so have no way of determining if any of this is correct. What say you?
Thank you in advance for your patience with a newbie.
John
Here are the issues I've run into so far:
1. The X was stalling and looked to be racking so I checked the rails for parallel. They were out as much as 3/16" so I adjusted them to within 1/32nd and diagonally within 1/8th for square. I also adjusted the parallelism cables for equal tension. It still stalls so my question is: Are those acceptable tolerances?
2. I tested the machine and the initial X travel was off by 6.375" but when calibrated it was within .25 inches over 71" of travel. Clearly not right, but better than it was. The Y is a different story. The Gantry is parallel within 1/16th but the stepper stalls quite a bit and over 48" it loses 9.5" traveling away and loses only 5.125" returning which causes it to hit the stop. This result is fairly repeatable within .25". I noticed that while against the stop and no longer traveling, the counter for the Y axis continued to tick down to zero. Does this indicate a problem with the encoder or does SB 2.38 count drive pulses to give that reading?
3. Diagnostic test on the encoder when looking at the stream goes as follows: 333332222000001111333332222000001111 etc. I noticed there are Five 3s in a row followed by Four 2s, Five 0s, Four 1s. I have no experience with this kind of equipment and no documentation with which to compare any of the diagnostics output and so have no way of determining if any of this is correct. What say you?
Thank you in advance for your patience with a newbie.
John