EMC.ini with Camtronics 5A Me too

Thanks for the help you didn't know you were giving
me. I'm new here and also downloaded EMC BDI about a
month ago, built three 5A drivers, and hitched up
three used step-sys steppers to my 10 year old Grizzly
mill drill via XL timing belts.

My desire to see something move caused me to put the
EMC on the shelf and install the demo version of
Master5CNC. I was able to get that configured and
running in less than 10 minutes. It served my testing
purposes well and seems like it could have a good
future if development continues. The problem I had
with it is that I have to run it in `safe mode' in
order to get smooth motion. So back to EMC.

The only icon I could get to run out of the box from
the BDI was the sim. So I copied all the files and
began hacking at the INI file with the help of what
fragmented documentation I could find. (Is there a
complete description of all the variables in the ini
file that I have not found yet?) I had the same death
problem as previously mentioned (reboot, or bounced
out to login, or just lock up – also had amplifier
gain faults) when I tried to home the machine. As
soon as I lowered the max_velocity, all that went
away.

So now I'm running EMC on a P233, hooked to Camtronics
5A drivers, hooked to steppers, hooked to my mill
drill, with no limit or home switches yet. It's not
perfect yet. My X uses 4444 pulses per inch and does
not appear to be very smooth. Y uses ~5200 ppi and
seems smooth. Z uses ~3900 ppi and is fairly smooth.
I notice that when I have the Z axis moving down at a
very slow speed, there is a definite pause in the
motion at a regular interval of about 1 second.

Other things I've noticed that someone may be able to
help with: 1) Response to keyboard input for
continuous jogs seems very slow – motion continues
"long" after I let up on the key. 2) When I set up
for a job and `home' the axis to my start point, I get
motion like the controller wants to hunt for zero. I
have noticed this even if the display already reads
zero when I hit the home button. Seems I could
destroy a few tiny end mills this way.

If anyone has a set up similar to mine, I sure would
like to get a peek at a tuned up ini file.

Thanks for the help already,
Tom