Brother TC-211

mblaszkiewicz wrote: well tried everything I could think of. In linux cnc I can move the axis and get position movement, but no actual. If it doesn't come together by this weekend the machine will be up for sale.

I feel sure that this can be done.

Can you explain what you mean by " I can move the axis and get position movement, but no actual" ?

mblaszkiewicz wrote: You could always call Shipping wars and insure the hell out of it hehehehe

Who are they? Besides, these old girls are actually pretty good machines. Great footprint and can be wicked fast. I agree with Andy - get it running.

Andy - I believe he might mean that the monitor is "showing" or indicating movement on the screen, but that they hardware is not actually doing any moving.

When I start linuxcnc I can manually move all the axis one at a time. If I set the position to projected ?? (I think) it will show movement. When I have it as actual nothing moves at all in the read out, even though the axis is moving.

And shipping wars. its a show on discovery. Jared breaks almost everything he touches, or is really really late.

mblaszkiewicz wrote: When I start linuxcnc I can manually move all the axis one at a time. If I set the position to projected ?? (I think) it will show movement. When I have it as actual nothing moves at all in the read out, even though the axis is moving.

I still don't understand what you are describing.

Does the actual, physical, machine move?

If the machine moves and the "actual" position in LinuxCNC doesn't move then that means that the position feedback isn't getting through from the encoders to motion controller in the software.
This might actually just be a HAL problem.

Sounds like the Linux side (not a drive, or mechanical) issue, like the Z axis is not being seen as a "real" axis. If one just installs and configures LinuxCNC they can jog axis's and see numbers move on the monitor.....

Ran into something like this Monday on a Citizen machine. I forgot I had the Z2 axis turned off after taking out the servo for repair. Put the motor in, tried zero-returning, and there was no physical axis movement but the control showed movement and did not care about real feedback... Granted that is a Mitsubishi control but the principle still applies.

Where is the Z axis physically? Have you worked with any ATC stuff, or are you going to do this manually?

Have you tried sending an "enable" signal to the Z-axis manually?


Where are you at currently with this? I do quite a bit of CNC service work and am familiar with Brother stuff (very easy to work with). If your really really stuck, shoot me a PM or email


FYI you will prob never get better results with a half-arse CNC machine than a real one, not to mention a brother. This is just a small hump to get over.

mblaszkiewicz wrote: And shipping wars. its a show on discovery. Jared breaks almost everything he touches, or is really really late.

Ah. That explains it. Television reference. I don't watch very much television.
Just the news, PBS ev'ry once in a while, and maybe an odd blue moon gander at something else from one of the educational show.