Machsupport Forum
Mach Discussion => General Mach Discussion => Topic started by: tmsmith on May 10, 2007, 02:02:07 PM
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Since I last used my mill something has changed and speed control of the spindle speed has been lost.
I am using mach3 v2.064, a digispeed XL control board with spindle speed fed back using a pulse index board from CNC4PC.
If I give M3 and a S~ codees the spindle surgeees into life then settles back to minimum speed.
This occurrs whatever speed I ask for eg S2000.
I have checked through all the config settings and tried some alterations but no success.
With the digispeed on manual I can turn the speed right up, no problem.
If I use the automatic speed calibration it winds the speed way up in descrete steps.
I sometimes get the message 'PWM bumped to minimum' on the status line which seems tto cover the symptoms.
I am not sure whether or not I have upgraded to 2.064 since my last use of the mill which could mean a wrong setting but I have gone through the digispeed set-up more than once and cannot see a fault.
I am assuming it is not an electronic fault.
Can anyone suggest my next move; I am getting very frustrated.
I seem to remember having this problem before but cannot remember how I solved it.
Help
Malcolm Smith
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Malcolm,
Please post you XML and we will have a look at it :)
I think you need to turn off the pid loop for the spindle
Thanks
Brian
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Brian, thanks for your reply.
I switched off PID and spindle control was back to normal.
Attaching .XML file for your perusal
Keep up the good work
Malcolm Smith
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To tmsmith and Brian... I'm new here and hope this goes to the right place.
I'm having the same problem with my spindle. I can't change the pwm speed output with the S input. It was working for a while and then it quit accepting S commands. I checked the configurations and I don't have the PID enabled. The index input is working ok indicating the correct speed. Watching the pwm output on a scope, it never changes.
On an M3 command (with S at any value) the spindle surges on then settles back to about 500rpm. I also verified that I'm not in CSS mode.
Thanks,
Tom Carlson
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Hmm... This is a bit odd... I would post your XML and we can have a look at your settings.
If you would like you can also send me the XML off list.
Thanks
Brian
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Hi tom_emag,
If your system worked then stopped working something must have changed.
I found it important to record changes made; probably my memory at fault, so I could return to previous conditions.
Of course a connection might have broken.
It will be interesting to see what Brian has to say.
tmsmith
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First, thanks for the quick reply. Before I went further I double checked everything again and found that my index pulse was not getting through for spindle rpm. I did run the spindle auto calibrate in that condition and that may have been the problem. After fixing the index problem and got rpm info back I re-ran the auto calibrate and it went ok. I now have normal speed control back. I can't be positive these are related but it did seem to correct the problem.
I'm now trying to get my tool changer going and could use some advice on that. It's a simple 6 position tool changer that provides a pulse per tool position and an additional index at tool 1 position. It only requires one output to start it moving, wait for the correct number of pulses and drop the output to index that tool. Question is: how do I control the output lines? Is that done by assigning M-codes or is there a script language of some sort. I see there are some tool changer programs posted but no info on how to call these from Mach.
Thanks again for the help.
Tom Carlson
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Hello,
Please have a look at the toolchanger video on the web.. that should give you a great place to start!
Thanks
Brian
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Thanks, I looked at the toolchanger video and it was helpful. However, I could not find the M6START.MLS they referenced as a starting point. Can you tell me where it is or if there are any tutorials on how to call/ format a macro? (I'm sure this is all obvious, just need a starting point)
Questions:
> how do you call a routine like an M command, for example "M6 T0101"?
> where are the macros or command scripts located? How do I access them to modify or add commands? Are there individual files for each command?
> is there a listing of the variable references? In reading some of the posted scripts I see the DROs for example are accessed by a variable number.
> is there a programming document that has all this in one place?
Tom