Machsupport Forum
Third party software and hardware support forums. => Modbus => Topic started by: scratch on June 21, 2010, 04:14:05 AM
-
Help, has anyone managed to get the Homann Designs MP03 pendant kit working with the Smoothstepper running in Mach3 .I have tried everything my very limited electronics knowledge can think of without success as the two seem to be in complete conflict with each other. Very disappointing after having built it to find that on the face of it they appear to be incompatible.Unless you know differently.
Scratch
-
Yes, that is true, the Smooth Stepper handles the e stop in a conflicting way with the Pendant Estop. So I sent a Revised Plugin to Peter Holman that has an option where you can UNCHECK a box that says "Use Pendant Estop", when you Uncheck that, the Estop function/button is disable on the Pendant, so your only using the SS Estop at that time.
The logic that the SS uses is mutually exclusive to the logic that the Pendant uses for estop functions, so unless he makes and option to do his estop logic differnt, then the above is the only way I know to make the two live togeter. If you still want to use the EStop button on the pendant, I would run a seperate pair of wires to it, along they serial cable (or make your on cable with 2 extra conductors past the serial 9), and then run thos pair into the SS, so in essence the Estop button would still "Work" from the pendant....
I DID leave the E Stop LED status function still working.......
scott
-
Hi Scott, thanks for that but i still have further problems. When i open the Mp03 profile i am asked do i want to use parallel port or smoothstepper. Click on smoothstepper then asked to assign config details to smoothstepper using smoothstepper plug in set up tab. Input relevant criteria but am then told "settings threshold in config failed" and no settings can be saved so still no joy. Any suggestions?
i have emailed Peter so hopefully he will send me a revised plug in for the e stop.
Charlie
-
Pete told me that the new "fixed" plugin cleared your prob, is that true?
scott
-
Hi Scott, the revised plug in certainly fixed the e stop problem once i had unchecked the new "use pendant e-stop " box but now i can get past that stage i now have the problem outlined above in that if the MP03 plug in is activated i cannot save any config files for the smoothstepper plug in and i just get the error message "settings threshold in config failed " and Mach will not save any smoothstepper parameters in the smoothstepper plug in config tab. Got any ideas. I have asked on the various forums if anyone who uses a smoothstepper has a functioning MP03 pendant but so far no replies.
Charlie
-
Hi Charlie,
I just got back from being interstate. There may be something in Scott's plugin that is interfering with the SmoothStepper plugin. I'll ask Greg if he knows what the interference may be.
Cheers,
Peter
-
Thanks Peter, appreciate all the help.
Charlie
-
Pete,
There is nothing in my plugin to interfere with the SS, what the plugin does, is take info to and from the Serial Plugin Modbus, and depending on what that info is applies it to mach3 button, label, DRO or LED functions. The plugin has absoulutly NO connection to controlling the Trajectory planner, OTHER than standard JOGGING, that is done using the same Jog plugin codes that Brian uses........
The XML that the plugin writes is to a different section of the Mach3 XML. If Greg is using the Serial Plugin Modbus for anything on the SS, then it could be there, but I dont think he is. So, I suspect that this is something that is inside of Mach3 and will take someone at Brians level to ferret out.
scott
-
Thanks for that Scott, anybody at Artsoft got any ideas how to get the smoothstepper working with the pendant otherwise i'll have to hang the mp03 on the wall as an ornament.?.
Charlie
-
Hi Charlie,
We'll get there, it will just take a little time. I'm waiting on a reply from Greg regarding the smoothstepper. He is interstate at the moment.
Keep in mind that I'm in Austral, Scott is in Iraq, and Greg, Brian are in the USA. That creates delays in corresponding etc :)
Cheers,
Peter.
Thanks for that Scott, anybody at Artsoft got any ideas how to get the smoothstepper working with the pendant otherwise i'll have to hang the mp03 on the wall as an ornament.?.
Charlie
-
Thanks Peter, i understand what you are saying and i appreciate the time you guys are committing to the problem.
Cheers
Charlie
-
I have looked again at the Plugin source, I dont see anything that would conflict.......
BUT!!! I do think the problem is here:
The SS is an external motion plugin, and as such on that plugins init, it tells mach that it is not using machs motion (para port), code, that it will handle all motion code.
The Pedant kit code, writes to the motion stuctures (for movement stuff like Jogging), that are the structures for motion in machs internal motion code i.e. the Parallel port stuff.......
So in essence when you run any External motion board that "Takes over" all the motion, then stuff like Pedant plugins that write to Machs OEM internal motion structures have been taken over and disabled by the external motion board.
I suspect the solution would be to have Greg, Make/expose some of his external motion code so that I could call his hooks from the pendant code. OR something along those lines..........
scott
-
Hi guys, I have my Mp03 pendant working but not functioning as the unit should. I can't enable the brains that come with the plugin, when enabled the X axis makes small 1/2" forward rapid movements. I have absolutely NO idea how to write or sort out brain programming so I have left it well alone. In doing so my MPG movements are very disjointed and jittery but with my machine being bigger than most having some remote control is better than nothing.
In my set-up I must have power (24v) to the pendant before I start Mach3, if not then it all locks up and I have to close Mach and start again. I'm grateful that I have this pendant even though it's not perfect it has made using my machine a lot easier.
-
there is no brains that come with the pendant plugin, it is all done in the plugin.........
scott
-
Update:
I got the MP-03 (peter holmans pendant kit based on the ModIO), working with the Smooth Stepper. Also, Greg of SS and I skyped each other this evening on some changes that may need to help this issue with out the below Dog-and-Pony show tricks to get them to play together.
Here is what I did to get them to work togther, I started by making sure ONLY MP-03 pendant plugin and NOT the SS plug in was enabled. I first varified that the MP-03 works as per normal.
Once it was working like it should I when into the Plugin config menu and disabled the MP-03.
Also, without my comp hooked to the machine, just using the MP-03 and SS by themselves......
I then made sure the ask about what motion thing to use was checked, so when i rebooted it would ask me if I wanted PP, or SS.....
On reboot, I rechecked and made sure that BOTH SS and MP-03 was disabled in the plugin config.
I then enabled ONLY the SS plugin, and closed and rebooted m3.
when it came up, I told it to use the SS, and once it came up, I made sure the SS was configured in PP as it should for the machine. NOTE!!!!!!!!: for testing, I set the Estop to Use active low (set the GREEN check), hit apply and ok, then hit the reset. Once the SS was configured and running as it should. I then CLOSED mach so that it would save the SS settings to the XML...
I then rebooted m3, when it came back up, it came back up in SS mode as it should.
Then I went to the configure plugins again, and enabled the MP-03, and double checked to make sure the Serial Plugin modbus was ON, and the Coms was working with NO errors, with the TEST dialog.
Then I closed M3 and rebooted again, both SS and MP-03 came up and played well together, with the ability to close and reopen m3 with no problems.......
I got with Greg and he is gonna do a NEW SS plugin also that will look at the XML and see if the MPG1 is enabled and the Ports and Pins for it are set to "0" ("0") is the setting that the MP-03 uses for MPG settings since it is pulled off the Modbus.
scott
-
I just wanted to post that I have my MP03 up and running with a Smoothstepper. I had some configuration problems when I upgraded from 2.1 to 2.5 of the MP03 plugin, but it was just with my configuration of modbus, not the SS. I do have electrical noise from my power supply that will lockup Mach and the SS, but by putting it on a different circuit fixed that.
Don