G540 / Smooth Stepper and an E Stop

[fragger6662000]

I am trying to get my G540 drive to work with the smooth stepper. The issue that i have is when i start the mach and the smooth stepper the e stop input won't clear due to the charge pump not firing up because mach won't start the smooth stepper due to the estop.

I am using the error line on the G540 as the E-stop input at the moment.

I know everything is working as i can disable the E stop and no problems. Effectively i need to delay or over ride the estop untill the smooth stepper generates the charge pump signal.

And heres some retro CNC for you!

[Peter Homann]

Hi,

This is a situation where you don't need to use the Charge pump facility on the G540. You don't need it as you are not driving the G540 from a parallel port. Switch it to the OFF position.

Keep in mind that the charge pump was provided due to the fact that when a PC boots, the outputs of the parallel port will twitch during bootup. This has the undesirable effect off momentarily switching on outputs such as spindle relays, and issuing spurious step signals to drives etc. By having Mach3 generate a chargepump signal when running, breakout boards cab disable outputs until Mach3 is up and in control.

Since the SmoothStepper knows when its communicating with Mach3, the chargepump signal has no use in this setup, so turn it off.


While we are talking about the chargepump signal, a note relating to using it with parallel port setups.

Under the general config in Mach3 there is a checkbox labelled "Chargepump On in EStop". You should always check this. There is no situation that I can envisage that you would want to use the chargepump for anything other than an indication that Mach3 is running.

And further, relying on the chargpump for anything else other than an indication that Mach3 is running (and not necessarily running correctly) is dangerous.




Cheers,

Peter.

[Hood]

The idea of the chargepump was to stop the windows interrogation of the parallel port during booting affecting your motors. As the SmoothStepper loads each time you start Mach the charge pump is no longer needed for its intended purpose when using the SmoothStepper.
If you are determined to use it then make sure you have the Chargepump set to On in E-Stop, its General Config page.

Hood

See Peter got in before me

[fragger6662000]

Thanks for the help. I was planning on using the charge pump signal as i am running a reasonable laptop that can drop the smouth stepper and i want to be double sure that it trips out. The machine that i am build does have the power to destroy itself unlike my old machine.

Thanks again!

[Hood]

If the SS loses communications then it will not run your drives.
Also you are falling into the trap of thinking the chargepump is a safety device, as Peter has mentioned that is not its intended purpose and it should not be thought of that way.
Hood

[Peter Homann]

If the SS loses communications then it will not run your drives.
Also you are falling into the trap of thinking the chargepump is a safety device, as Peter has mentioned that is not its intended purpose and it should not be thought of that way.
Hood