Mach4 Crashing its profile often

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pviljoen
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Mach4 Crashing its profile often

Post by pviljoen »

It seems to me that Mach4 is crashing its profile very often, On my machine though. Way to often for my liking. I am loosing position on the machine, or bending and or damaging bits.
Any body had similar problems?
I have added a dedicated ground from the machine to the building and it is not helping.
It seems to me it starts every time I use the Stop function button. Then strange things appear where the system looses height when you do a homing function( Z values not he same as before the Homing was done). Sometimes even the z-probe does not respond, even over reacting and not responding to the z-probe.(continuing after it touches the z-probe and damaging the z-probe and bit). I have quite a few gouaches in my z-probe from this action.
Any ideas?
How do I create a backup profile setting which I can easily switch too. (Too many custom setting that needs to be redone, if I am using the manuals direction of resetting from the Backup profile procedure.

pviljoen
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Re: Mach4 Crashing its profile often

Post by pviljoen »

Ok Solved step1. How to create a backup of all your custom settings. This is under the support section and not the setup section.
Use the Package Profile menu selection under >Help>Support> Package Current Profile. Save this to your own profile backup directory. It will save the INI files to a .m4prof extension.
The next question, can I use the Mach4GUI procedure to reload this file.

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SteveNelson46
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Re: Mach4 Crashing its profile often

Post by SteveNelson46 »

If you are losing position and breaking bits then most likely your feeds and plunge rates are set too fast. Try slowing them down a little and see if it improves.
Steve

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AboveCreations
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Re: Mach4 Crashing its profile often

Post by AboveCreations »

You stated that you put a ground to the house. Could you explain that a little more? Where are the ground wires attached? I also had static issues when I first setup my machine a few years ago and I got it resolved by connecting a ground wire from the controller box, and the spindle and the table. Each separately go to a metal stake outside in the ground.

When you say you are connecting your ground to the house, does that mean an electrical outlet? If so, that is not a proper ground. I am not an electrician, but I researched this and it is rather important to get dedicated grounding and also do not mix the ground wires together. That is called looping and defeats the grounding purpose. You can google for more information on proper grounding of your machine.

If the issue isn't static, then it is probably your speeds and plunge rate as SteveNelson stated.

Salmon's lair
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Re: Mach4 Crashing its profile often

Post by Salmon's lair »

l would also add a ground to your dust extraction hose, often a source of static

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AboveCreations
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Re: Mach4 Crashing its profile often

Post by AboveCreations »

Salmon's lair wrote:
Fri Dec 10, 2021 9:57 am
l would also add a ground to your dust extraction hose, often a source of static
Good point! Especially if you have it attached to the spindle. I don't since I like to watch my carve/cuts and manually clear off debris

pviljoen
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Re: Mach4 Crashing its profile often

Post by pviljoen »

Great Points guys.
Yes The problem was with the plastic hose from the spindle to the dust collator. I saw a lot of small dust collecting on the inside of the hoses. As soon as I touched it and grounded my other hand, with a few stars in my eyes, the dust would dropped down to the bottom of my extractor hose.
All this was solved when I started connecting everything to a grounded earth running along the table and then to the outside of the workshop. Working in a metal shopped which was not originally grounded, seemed to be at the root of the problem. Also noted that the fans blowing across your workspace quickly builds up on static electricity.

I also noticed when resetting Mach4 to goto the origin, seems to update the various coordinates and not to the default for my machine. Example default height at origin should be 52mm and soon as that is something different, I knew I had to reboot the application or else I would start running into the board, which would break a bit.

You have to learn not to just close the laptop, but to do a proper shutdown. Being complacent and just except the numbers is not a good idea. Verify as often as you can. Mach4 is NOT the most trustable application when it comes to saving defaults.

rig gap
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Re: Mach4 Crashing its profile often

Post by rig gap »

You may have stumbled onto the problem...I remember years ago when I first started using Mach3, it was noted that a laptop shouldn't be used to control the machine...reason for this is laptops, unless they have been set up properly will do unexpected things like hibernate during a run cycle because the mouse wasn't moved for a period of time, or it would look for an internet connection, etc...go into settings on your computer and turn off anything that would cause it to do anything other than run your program.

pviljoen
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Re: Mach4 Crashing its profile often

Post by pviljoen »

I learned that lesson the hard way. I have disable almost every app running especially all the MS apps. Also have updated the power profile to make sure that all hibernation, sleep and shutdown settings have been disabled.
It is running smooth now. with plenty of ram available. Also set the system settings to give all the memory to display card apps.

For a 12GB laptop is has now reserved 10GB for Mach4 only. It is not used for anything else and NOT connected to the Internet. Got That t-shirt.

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