Member postings for Keith Petley

Michael, looking at the driver from the link in your first posting I get the following - which explains the CPU type mismatch, but doesn't help solve the problem.

Keith

Keiths-MacBook-Pro-289:MacOS keith$ file MoticTWAIN

MoticTWAIN: Mach-O universal binary with 2 architectures: [i386:Mach-O bundle i386] [ppc_7400]

MoticTWAIN (for architecture i386): Mach-O bundle i386

MoticTWAIN (for architecture ppc7400): Mach-O bundle ppc_7400

Keiths-MacBook-Pro-289:MacOS keith$

Hi Iain,

I had a factory3d printer and found that a lot of the noise was transmitted through the base into whatever it was standing on - rubber feet helped.

I don't know how old your printer is, but when I went to re-download the support package I discovered that there was a newer version. The relevant point here is that the new version has two rods which brace the top of the aluminium frame (STL models for the new top/bottom brackets are in the download). These dampen vibrations in the frame, which improves print quality but also lowered the noise coming from the frame.

A word of warning - I built a simple enclosure for mine as I was trying to print ABS parts for my next printer. It worked well but then I started to get problems maintaining Z height over the bed, bed levelling and other nasty problems. Eventually discovered that the rise in temperature inside the enclosure coupled with the local heat from the Z steppers and extruder motor were enough to cause the mounting brackets for these motors to sag. They didn't melt as such, just sagged a little more each time it was used - the glass transition point for PLA is only 60 degrees. I ended making aluminium brackets for these parts and had no further heat problems.

BTW, these best upgrade I did was to double up the wiring from the PSU to the RAMPS board and from the RAMPS to the bed heater - with the supplied wiring I was barely getting 10v on the bed. It made a huge difference to the startup times.

Keith

Dave,

Half of FF is 7F (well 7F.8 to be exact) - so I assume that 3F represents 25%.

Which brings the question 25% of what? Is it 25% "pigment", implying the remaining 75% is transparent?

Would this then be described as 25% or 75% transparent - a problem neatly avoided by using 50% as an example!

Keith

I recall having trouble in the past using mono plugs in stereo sockets. The tip of the mono plugs was more generous in length than those on the stereo plugs and the centre contact on the stereo socket landed across the insulator ring and shorted the plug.

Try placing an insulated wedge into the centre switch contacts to lift it clear of the plug and use the outer pair of contacts.

Keith

Stan,

This would appear to be the manual, page 52 has the same image of the screen display

https://www.clockmaker.it/files_forum/monografie/emco/emco_5/emco_compact_5.pdf

**LINK**

Keith

Edited By Keith Petley on 16/05/2022 11:43:07

Michael,

Just thinking out loud here....

...but if Micrographs isn't the maker's name then the device has no maker's info or serial number etc. which suggests that it may have been made 'in-house'. In that case a "graph" could be informal in-house jargon. For example, "100-300 micro grays per hour" is not an outlandish scale.

Keith (who knows nothing about radiation measurements, except what Google just turned up)

Check that the X motor coils are wired correctly. Sounds like one pair may be wired so that they oppose each other rather than work together. Try just one winding out of each pair and see if it improves things - then add the second winding of each pair.

Keith

Nicola, before swapping the X and Y over check for backlash in the Y.

Move in one direction (eg +Y), zero an indicator on it, move the same direction again and then come back. Try it a couple of times and then a couple in the reverse direction. Backlash problems normally give a repeatable set of readings.

If it's worked OK for a long time and then "degraded" I'd look for a mechanical problem first, electrical failures tend to be all or nothing.

I once chased a weird problem which looked a lot like lost steps but turned out to be a ball nut mounting block had come loose.

Keith

Hi Neil,

Count me in as well

Thanks, Keith

Hi Neil,

Please could you add me to the list?

Thanks.

Hi Nicola,

Before you climb in the back of the machine with a soldering iron a couple of things to consider.

First is the long green connector really a plug and socket? On some of them the top part with the wires and screw terminals will unplug from the bottom half which is soldered to the board. The long black line on the connector in the photo looks promising.

Secondly do you have any spare opto inputs on the board? If so, can you move the e-stop to one of the spares (need to tell mach3 where you moved it).

Keith

Hi Michael,

Try reading the resistor in the ebay photo from the other end - looks like green,blue,black,black,brown which would be 560 Ohm at 1% tolerance.

Keith

Hi Michael,

I took a quick look at the errors above and if you still want to have a go at building this then try the following:

1 - I think you are launching the script from the wrong place. The script expects to be run from the directory where it is located.

cd Downloads/LaserWeb4-Binaries-4.0.996-134

./build.osx.sh

2 - The script can't find the yarn command - you probably need to download it from somewhere

3 - The same with npm.

Keith

Hi Neil,

Try looking up Taptite screws - first came across them in the70's

Keith

Apart from the colour the Proxxon device appears visually the same as the Rokrow RK2050.

**LINK**

Rokrow spares may be easier to find (or maybe not... )

Keith

Filling knife/scraper blades are tapered so that the blade gets thinner as it gets wider. Perhaps they are the scrap from stamping blanks for that sort of blade?

For example **LINK**

Keith