Anyone know why my motors would begin turning, but stop halfway through like this?
Looks like your doing a g0x15 move which will ignore the feedrate f5 parameter.
This will command your motor at it maximum feedrate setting. Either your acceleration or max feedrate is set too high.
Try
g1 x15f5
@Jim_Fong ok. Is that also related to how I have the motor tuned? Do I need to change anything in settings if this is a 15:1 ratio planetary gear reducer?
I haven’t kept up with your build.
What kind of motors, drivers and power supply are you using again
Take a pic of the Mach3 motor tuning panel with your current settings.
I’m using a NEMA 23 with a 15:1 gear reducer for the X axis and I have a DM542 (I think it’s called) driver with a Meanwell 24v 350 watt 14.6 A (I think) PSU. The Z axis is a NEMA 34 with a gecko driver and the Y axis has 2 425oz-in NEMA 23s driven by TB6600 Drivers.
@George_Allen with 24v supply, your not going to get very high motor rpm. With 15:1 reduction, I’ll be surprised if the output shaft is spinning more than 75rpm. You are running into motor rpm limits.
Should I replace that motor with just a regular NEMA 23 without the gear reducer?
It may be possible for me to attach a 2:1 reduction pulley to the NEMA without the planetary gear system on it, though it’ll take a bit of work.
@George_Allen there are very few circumstances where a gear reduction is needed for a stepper motor driving a ballscrew/leadscrew. Even then it would be 2:1 or maybe 3:1 reduction
Your are better off using a low inductance stepper motor with no reduction.
Because Mach 3 is garbage?
But seriously LinuxCNC is capable of a faster pulse stream than Mach is. Still what others have said about reduction is true. The biggest challenge with stepper motors is getting them to spin fast. What step sequence do you use? 1/4, 1/8th, 1/10th, 1/32nd or more stepping? Going too many microsteps can lower your top RPM depending on the step rate you can generate. I can remember having some movement issues when I had my scale wrong too. Then the controller thought the machine was moving much faster than it actually was. So having your scale right is important.
@Paul_Frederick yes, that was the problem. Once I lowered the velocity it worked fine. I may switch off the gear reduction if it causes problems. I thought the gear reduction would help get through harder materials.
My next big decision is whether to stick with the pulley on the z-axis or not. The diameter of the ballscrew is too small to fit the pulley. I had to put in a nylon spacer and I don’t think it is going to last.
@George_Allen when you get running a lot of what you’re thinking now is going to change. Then you’ll understand when, where and why you need power. It’s not what you’re thinking now either. Cutting is feeding and feeding generally happens at a slower speed. Rapid moves on the other hand can be fast. How much power you have will determine your top rapid travel speed too.