Messages

1

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 2803, ESS, and homing slaved motors

« on: February 26, 2016, 02:01:28 PM »

Quick update. I tried everything suggested short of rewiring my motors to match the XYZYslave pattern as I've been too busy with life and getting some jobs cut. No dice so far.

I got this from the ArtSoft guys, so it sounds like the 1234 stuff in Mach4's homing is meaningless and only the axis letter labels matter.

Hello Shane, the axis labeling is for the motor on the labeled Axis. The smooth stepper takes control for homing form Mach regardless of being slaved.

At this point I'm going to hold out for the "significant overhaul" of the plugin from Warp9 which is supposed to be out soon before putting any more time into it as it sounds like they're making some changes to homing in it.

2

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 2803, ESS, and homing slaved motors

« on: February 19, 2016, 02:33:36 PM »

I was under the impression that Mach4 does not treat the axis/motor relationships the same way as Mach3 so was ignoring that default homing set for A. Are you telling me then that the numbers next to XYZABCetc are actually the motor numbers and their labelling is just misleading?

3

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 2803, ESS, and homing slaved motors

« on: February 19, 2016, 12:38:40 PM »

More info in case it matters, limit switches are wired NC on dedicated inputs pulling to ground so are active high. Mach does detect the switches independently, stops each motor appropriately and backs off. It just doesn't stop backing off nor does it set the axis as homed.

I tried to trim the noise out of the INI file as my brain can't dig through all the extra stuff, so hopefully this below is everything pertinent to the specific issue. Are there any other sections or settings that would affect this?


[ESS]
Port1-Pin4_ActiveLow=0
Port1-Pin5_Enabled=1
Port1-Pin5_ActiveLow=0
Port1-Pin6_Enabled=1
Port1-Pin6_ActiveLow=0
Port1-Pin7_Enabled=1
Port1-Pin7_ActiveLow=0
Port1-Pin11_Enabled=1
Port1-Pin11_ActiveLow=0
Port1-Pin12_Enabled=1
Port1-Pin12_ActiveLow=0
Motor_1_ApproachVelocity=5.0
Motor_1_BackoffVelocity=5.0
Motor_1_SlaveMisalignment=0.000000
Motor_1_MaxMasterSlaveDelta=0.000000
Motor_2_ApproachVelocity=5.0
Motor_2_BackoffVelocity=5.0
Motor_2_SlaveMisalignment=0.000000
Motor_2_MaxMasterSlaveDelta=0.000000
Port1-Pin4_StandardName=Motor 1 Step
Port1-Pin5_StandardName=Motor 1 Dir
Port1-Pin6_StandardName=Motor 2 Step
Port1-Pin7_StandardName=Motor 2 Dir
Port1-Pin11_StandardName=Motor 1 Home
Port1-Pin12_StandardName=Motor 2 Home
Motor_1_EncoderSwitchName=Motor 1 Home
Motor_2_EncoderSwitchName=Motor 2 Home

[Axis1]
OutOfBandAxis=0
SpindleAxis=0
Enabled=1
JogWithBuffer=1
HomeOrder=3
HomeDir=1
HomeOffset=0.000000
HomeSpeedPercent=100.000000
SoftLimitUsed=0
HomeInPlace=0
OverrideAxis1=-1
OverrideAxis2=-1
OverrideAxis3=-1
OverrideAxis4=-1
ChildMotor0=Motor1
ChildMotor1=Motor2

[Motor1]
Enabled=1
Reverse=1
CanHome=1
CountsPerUnit=12800.000000
MaxVelocity=106666.666667
MaxAccel=320000.000000
BacklashAmount=0.000000
SoftMaxLimit=0.000000
SoftMinLimit=0.000000
EnableDelay=0

[Motor2]
Enabled=1
Reverse=1
CanHome=1
CountsPerUnit=12800.000000
MaxVelocity=106666.666667
MaxAccel=320000.000000
BacklashAmount=0.000000
SoftMaxLimit=0.000000
SoftMinLimit=0.000000
EnableDelay=0

[Axis1]
OutOfBandAxis=0
SpindleAxis=0
Enabled=1
JogWithBuffer=1
HomeOrder=3
HomeDir=1
HomeOffset=0.000000
HomeSpeedPercent=100.000000
SoftLimitUsed=0
HomeInPlace=0
OverrideAxis1=-1
OverrideAxis2=-1
OverrideAxis3=-1
OverrideAxis4=-1
ChildMotor0=Motor1
ChildMotor1=Motor2

[Signal66]
ID=66
Type=Input
Desc=Motor 1 Home
Enabled=1
Negated=0
Mapping=ESS/Motor 1 Home

[Signal67]
ID=67
Type=Input
Desc=Motor 2 Home
Enabled=1
Negated=0
Mapping=ESS/Motor 2 Home

4

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 2803, ESS, and homing slaved motors

« on: February 19, 2016, 12:04:31 PM »

You might be onto something about the homing config but I'm not seeing what you are. Where are you seeing that line for home in place for motor2 in the config?

Axis0 is my X axis, Axis2 is the Z, and so far I've only wired up homing switches on Axis1 which is the slaved Y motors. The directions should be correct. This is a lead screw axis so both motors turn the same direction, unlike belt/chain drive or rack and pinion. The machine is operational, I'm just finally getting around to this as I'm tired of manually squaring it up.

5

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 2803, ESS, and homing slaved motors

« on: February 18, 2016, 03:24:05 PM »

Does anyone have an idea of what's causing this non-stop backoff motion and failure to indicate homed?

6

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 2803, ESS, and homing slaved motors

« on: February 16, 2016, 11:50:21 PM »

I made some progress. Turns out I had some double or triple negatives going on in all the active high/low settings making it drive the homing backwards when both motors were setup.

Now the problem is it hits the switches, reverses, and never stops backing off. It does seem to be aligning the motors correctly at least, but it also never goes green on the axis reference indicator.

7

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 2803, ESS, and homing slaved motors

« on: February 16, 2016, 03:49:39 PM »

That's my functioning setup as mentioned, with only one configured. I won't be able to post the broken configuration until this evening.

Is your updated homing offset script the solution/workaround to this situation?

8

Mach4 General Discussion / Mach4 2803, ESS, and homing slaved motors

« on: February 16, 2016, 12:20:38 PM »

I'm running into an issue with setting up homing on this machine, which has dual motors on the Y axis. If I configure a single home switch (motor 1) on the axis it works as expected, stopping when the switch is activated. If I go so far as to configure but not enable the second switch (motor 2) in Mach's config, it blows past the previously working home switch (motor 1) and I have to stop the machine manually before it crashes. The same thing also happens if I enable the second switch. This seems to me like a bug in Mach...

My end goal is to set this axis up to self-align the gantry the two motors are on. I've searched around and found lots of "it doesn't work in Mach4 yet" and a couple mentions of "there's a workaround". Does anyone here know what's going on and how to get this to work, or what this supposed workaround might be?