Kevin Granted that you may like bigger motors but the above seems to indicate that the existing setup will drive the system. I still feel you should look at step/dir timing. I am not well up on Mach3 but know that some have sorted similar problems with "Sherline Mode"? Multiple small move errors indicates loss of steps at start and maybe end of move.
Sorry to be repetitive but thats how I see it.
Richard
The following is a post on the Mach group. Some tests as indicated may show your problem.
***************************** An LED array is handy to have, one sits on my desk since 2001 , and I use it ALLOT! , BUT you wont find it usefull in your case. This is because the pulse width is only 3us. The LED will show nothing unless your running at high speed, then it will glow at a % of average voltage. Single pulses cannot be seen, just a display of a varying brightness showing output speed. ( Still quite usefull in diagnostics.) Steve Stallings sells an excellent stepper test board for such things , it even has a small stepper on it to play with in motion, probably a little expensive for most for testing but invaluable for people who diagnose various computers as to driver function.There is an easier way to know though, the machine coordinate DRO. Purposely, and mentioned many times in threads, that DRO was designed not to reflect where mach3 thinks it is, there are many variables internally for that, the DRO's programming is very simple, it counts output pulses. The code that actually changes a step pulse increments or decrements that counter. The DRO display is ( #ofsteps / steps/unit ).
So you can just reset the motor tuning to tell it that 1 step is one inch. Retune the speeds so it runs and watch the Machine coordinate DRO. It will advance 1 for each step taken. and decrement for each step in the opposite direction. If it counts 1, then you can be sure a step pulse was put out, no question about it. if it decrements 1, then a step was put out with a reversed DIR line, no question about it. Thinking about it, the DIR prechange time sounds like your trouble, picture what happens, the system tries to reverse, it changes the DIR line, waits 3us , then sets the step line, the driver hasnt yet seen the DIR line change so it outputs a reverse step. Why only in one direction? It may be case of the opto on the DIR line taking awhile ( longer than 3us) to turn on, but having a much faster turn-off time. Kinda like those annoying flourescent bulbs replacing incandecent ones, they take awhiel to get glowing very brightly, but when you flick them off, their instantly off, somewhet the reverse of the incandecent which is fast to glow, but fades out when switched off. Be pretty rare, but if your runnign on the edge of that opto's timing, it could in theory happen. Mach3 holds the DIR line on or off permanently until direction changes, it isnt a pulsed output, so this phenomenon can only happen at time of reversal, and is the only way a slow opto on the DIR input of the driver will be seen.
********************************** Richard
Why not join the Denford forum, they are very knowledgeable and helped me with all sorts of problems with my Cyclone lathe.
Hi Richard, I found the "Sherline Mode" -but it made things much worse, with much bigger errors. I'm not sure what drivers the Sherline uses, but this mode sets the output pulse to 20 microceconds. I think it is loosing steps at the start or end of a move (or both). But I haven't come up with any explanation other then dropping steps due to not driving the motors at full power (losing stepson acceleration). But I haven't found any settings that it works at, even going down to quite low speeds.
Regards Kevin
I had wondered the same thing, and changed the "dir" settings on the motor tuning to 5 (default is 0) but this didn't seem ot have any effect. Can this value be higher, although it says step and dir values should be between 0 and 5/
Regards Kevin
No idea, as I said I am not a Mach3 guru Did you try the DRO change as above, and monitored the motor for movement step by step. Other option is inverting the signals.
BTW you do have your belts "tight" don't you
It all seems silly to me. If you believe that long movements are accurate but multiple small movements are not, then it points to acceleration, a resonant problem or even a slack coupling.
BTW you have never indicated your error magnitudes between a long and multiple short movements.
Richard
Greetings Kevin, If the motor loses steps at the beginning of motion then it may be that the step rate is ramping up too fast. The motor cannot go from a stop to full speed instantly. For that matter it cannot stop instantly. So the step rate must ramp up and ramp down in order to avoid losing steps. There must be some kind of ramping adjustment in Mach3. The reason I like using servos with the Gecko 320 drives is because the drives accept step and direction pulses just like a stepper driver. The big advantage is that the drive has feedback from the servo via an encoder so that it doesn't lose steps. If the position command is too different from the actual position the drive shuts down. With a stepper system without feedback the drive doesn't know or care about actual steps completed so your parts come out wrong if steps are lost. Cheers, eric
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