FLSTEP Software for Novaturns moving the wrong distance

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FLSTEP Software for Novaturns moving the wrong distance

Post by Denford Admin » Thu 31 Jan , 2008 9:47 am

From a customer:
I have a high school customer that has 3 novaturn lathes that we sold about 10 years ago. They have smartstep 3 boards in them and are still using the dos flstep interface. Being a high school they have lost all of the original software disks. I only had 1 version of software archived (not sure what version it was, maybe 1.77) and it looks like the axis are moving farther than programmed (eg program says move z-3 inches looks like it moves about 4 or 5) Couldn't find a ruler in the school so not sure on exact distances. This is what's in the flstep.opt file:

autoerror 0
dragmarking 0
displaysize 3 {PRODUCT OPTIONS FILE AS OF 10/09/96
narrowsimbox 0 {FOR NOVATURN
utils_menu_1 Dos Access
utils_go_1 dos
utils_menu_2 Turning Designer
utils_go_2 ldesign
mirac_sdevice machine
showtool 0
{--------FEEDS & SCALING-----------------
slave_accel 120
highfeed 1000
highfeedz 1400
{--------SPINDLE----------------
slave_spindlelag 35
safespindle 150
slave_encoder 2000
slave_thread 1
HIGHSPINDLE 3500
{--------TOOLPOST---------------
SLAVE_ATC 3
MAXTOOL 8
{--------X-AXIS-----------------
MACHINEEXTENTX 140
MOVERANGEX 140
CHUCKCENTREX 60
CHUCKX 80
JAWSX 10
BILLETX 30
{-------Z-AXIS------------------
MACHINEEXTENTZ 207
MOVERANGEZ 177
CHUCKZ 20
JAWSZ 10
BILLETZ 50
--------MISCELLANEOUS FUNCS-----
datumorder 1
inspect 1

were there different pitch lead screws used in these machines over the years and if so what value do I change in the opt file?

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Post by Denford Admin » Thu 31 Jan , 2008 9:51 am

I have uploaded our current copy of FLSTEP here:
http://www.denfordata.com/downloads/dos/flstep.zip

- sorry we don't know much about it, but maybe someone else on the forum could help ?

Looking at the new (ie, latest) opt file, I see an additional option:
rem mint_mfact 200

Even though it is remarked out, my guess is that it could be used to set the number of steps per mm - novaturns are normally either 160 steps per mm or 200 which is close to your 4inch to 3inch movement ratio
Although I could be completely wrong :?

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