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1

General Mach Discussion / Warmup wizard question...

« on: November 08, 2011, 11:51:13 AM »

Hey guys,
     Well I posted in another thread that now my modbus spindle is operational. I am very pleased. However I just tried to do a warmup of the machine using the very cool wizard I got from here. It has been invaluable to me to allow me to not only warmup my machine but also to troubleshoot some issues I was having.  Anyways, My question is now that I have spindle control I tried to setup the warmup wizard to USE the spindle warmup features.  I set my max and min spindle speeds, my time, my speed interval in the settings.  Then I checked use spindle, and vary spindle speed I think it was and then posted the code. Problem is that when i tried to run the program the machine comes from home position, to the start position I indicated in the settings, then the spindle starts and goes to the low speed setting. Then the axes move to their first max position and the spindle speeds to it's highest position. For some odd reason the program seems to just stop there. It does not ask me for a cycle start prompting or anything it just stops. Then If I hit cycle start it will cycle to the next position of the axes and then go to the next spindle speed setting and it STOPS again.. I am sure it is probably some stupid setting I have wrong somewhere but if anyone here has an idea what it could be I would really appreciate it. Having the ability to warmup the spindle as well as the machine would be great.  Also I am curious as to why even tho it has the settings in the wizard for the steps of spindle speed( I used 1000) the spindle simply goes from the max to the min over and over in the G-code. Is that what it is supposed to do?  I was kinda hoping it would vary the speed in intervals of 1000 from my min to max and back down as it cycles thru the movements.  Thanks in advance for any information...peace


Pete

2

General Mach Discussion / Modbus spindle control questions...

« on: November 05, 2011, 09:42:27 PM »

  Okay guys, after quite some time chasing down some Servo faulting issues I finally decided to swap the computer I used to run my mill. This thankfully fixed the fault issues and as a side effect this new computer seems happy to talk to my Teco Sensorless Vector drive.  SO I decided to try to get this thing configured.

    I  have a fellow over on the zone that has the same setup as I do and he managed to get the modbus spindle control configured and he was kind enough to share his brains he wrote for it. I have loaded them into the machine and now I am trying to get the various settings right to allow this to work.  My teco comes with some software called EV link that allows you to configure the RS232 interface with the drive. I could not get this to work with my old computer but the new one was happy to connect and give me the ability to get the drive setup and I was able to turn it on and off and adjust the speed via a virtual control panel on  the computer. SO I know it works and I have communication with the drive.

   Now for what I do not know. The connection is setup on Com1 with 8 data bits, no parity, and 2 stop bits. I enabled modbus control in mach3 and I turned on the spindle control in mach 3 via enabling the spindle. I read where any port and pin address of 0,0 is assumed to be modbus.  I also attempted to configure the modbus and input the same settings he used on the modbus setup page, IE the port, speed, 8N2, and timeout settings.  I then input the dialogue in the blue blocks that determine the commands he used to control the spindle.  The only thing I changed between mine and his is the port address which was different as well as the baud rate.  When I tried to run the modbus test it will read and gives me a return of 0007.  

    In the spindle setup I selected modbus control and have 64 set and I did not know what to put in the Mach3 Max ADC but I input my max spindle speed of 6550 RPM. I selected to enable spindle relays and have them setup as output 2 and 3 for fwd and rev respectively.   I cannot get the machine to turn on the spindle and I am quite sure I am missing something here. Can anyone help me here?  I would appreciate any information you may be able to add.  This spindle control is something I have missed since I went away from relay control and I am anxious to be able to use my Tormach Tension and Compression tapping head again. Thanks in advance and peace

Pete

3

General Mach Discussion / Gecko G320 and crazy faulting issues...

« on: May 20, 2011, 05:07:29 PM »

   Hey there guys,
        I got a  real problem here lately with my cnc.  I built this machine for myself this past year and it has been a REAL adventure learning to do it and how to use it.  It took me a little while to get it all working and get the bugs worked out but after that it ran for QUITE a while many many months of good service and made me some cash which I really need right now. I am out of work due to a major surgery that I needed on my lung.   I have been using the machine to make some small parts that I sell and it would run for MANY MANY hours without issues.   I recently got the spindle setup which is a Teco sensorless vector drive and using my C11g board and some relays I got the spindle to be completely controlled my mach in both speed, direction, and stop. It worked like this and even did some tapping with a floating head easily.   A couple weeks ago my computer started giving me issues so I had to replace it with a used one I bought off craigslist.  I took off everything that has been loaded on it and loaded mach3.  It had been running with that for awhile but lately I am getting some weird stuff happening.  The computer will freeze up on me and the drives sometimes fault during a program.  I have been pulling my hair out trying to find the cause and thought it was the spindle drive which is located in the same large enclosure as the geckos,bob,pps, etc.   The computer USED to be inside there too but this new one does not fit so it sits underneath it.  I have so far completely disabled the spindle both electronically and in the Mach3 software and have been running a simple program to test it out and it STILL faults and it is not JUST one axis any time. Sometimes it is the X, sometimes it is the Z, one time the Y axis started to creep away on me slowly and I managed to hit the E-stop before it crashed.  I have all the limits and homes working and I can reference the machine.  I have tried to play with all my wiring connections to make sure I do not have a loose wire or something. It is a crazy thing because this little 15 minute program SOMETIMES will run thru without any problems then sometimes it will fault on the second or third operation.  It is just pure craziness and I am at MY WITS END HERE!!  I have spent the last two weeks trying to find the problem and it still eludes me. This machine HAD been extremely reliable and run almost daily for a long time.  Now it is all crazy and I do not know what the hell happened. I am NO electronics expert here and I do not have an O-scope here to test it out.   

     The machine has an Antek all in one toroidal transformer PPS, three Gecko G320's, an CNC4PC C11G bob, a Teco sensorless Vector drive.  I am using some largish 1125 Oz. in.  keling inc. motors and AMT encoders on all three axes.  I have noticed that my X axis pot settings HAVE to be down on the very lowest end of the gain settings but the limit can be all the way up.  All three axes are pretty quiet when the machine is running and everything is smooth and quiet right up til it starts to fault on me. I can leave the machine on for hours all day without any movement and it never locks up of shuts down or faults. I have run the driver test and it is saying excellent. I have turned off all the power save features in the computer and tried everything I can think of to get it to work. Can a computer cause the Geckos to randomly fault?   Can a PPS do it?   What the hell is going on here so I can get it fixed!!     I have been running the same program in air to see if it will fault and it sometimes will run the whole program without any issues and then sometimes it will  fault.  This is with NO SPINDLE and no power to the spindle the only things hooked up are the geckos on the three axes.  NO  coolant pump, no nothing.... Just the basic three axis machine. I have the controller running off 110vac as well as the computer and the monitor on the same power outlet.   I am TOTALLY lost here and TOTALLY screwed because I need this machine to work both because I am trying to use it to offset my lack of income and because I have it for sale so I can sell it with some other equipment I have here to get into a commercial machining center for my shop because I do not think I will be able to go back to my woodworking profession due to my health issues.  I would appreciate ANY assistance here.  Please do not ask me to start swapping parts and components because I am pretty tapped out right now. The only spare components I have are another G320 and a used AMT 102 encoder I replaced awhile back.... Thanks for any assistance in advance... peace

Pete

4

General Mach Discussion / Probably a stupid question but.....

« on: May 16, 2011, 05:45:54 PM »

  I just had a computer issue and had to reload my Mach3 software.  I saved my Xml file and when i tried to reload it the file was corrupted or something so I had to freakin' start all over. Anyways, I got the machine working and reloaded all the previous information the hard way.  Everything is working again except one thing.  When I hit the jog keys on my keyboard(arrow keys)  I get rapid speed movement instead of the way it was with a slow speed movement based on the MPG percent of feed  setting. When I hit Shift jog it is also rapid speed.  I would like to have back my slow speed jog again and I am sure I fat fingered some setting somewhere but I cannot seem to find it. I should add that I downloaded the newest stable version of Mach3 from this website for the re-install.... Any ideas or suggestions?  Peace

Pete

5

General Mach Discussion / Help with rs232 modbus and teco sensorless vector drive.

« on: March 01, 2011, 03:10:59 PM »

  Hey guys,
     I have a converted RF45 bedmill here that I have been running with a CNC4PC C11g board and I have it wired up to run my Teco sensorless vector drive with the analog output 0-10v. I also wired up an external relay to give me FWD and REV direction and speed control. I recently learned that I can control my Teco via modbus and an RS232. Now Teco sells an RS232 interface but someone alluded to another way to wire it directly. I would love to hear how to do this and how to properly wire it up. I would love to free up the two relays on my C11g board to be able to control my power drawbar and my flood coolant as well as other stuff.  The board only has so many inputs and outputs and I would really like to keep this thing as simple as possible and not have to buy additonal computer cards and output input boards if possible. Any ideas here would be great. Thanks and peace

Pete

6

General Mach Discussion / Forgive the newbie stupid questions please....

« on: November 28, 2009, 05:23:34 PM »

   Hey guys,
       I have a total newbie question here, I always use my manual starret edge finder to locate my fixtures on the mill and when I do I have to go to MDI and add in the .1 which is half the diameter of the edge finders probe. I notice that when I do type in these values there is a drop box that has the previous info I have typed in there. There have been many times I wanted to add the same info but could not simply click on it but rather had to retype it in, is there a way to access these previous inputs without having to retype it every time? SOunds simple I know but I cannot figure it out. I am still trying to get a handle on this software and so far it seems to work very well. I have much to learn and I am currently trying to get my first production run done with some simple small parts and basic fixturing. The auto axis calibration setup was very cool and I am so far getting some very repeatable and accurate parts but I know that there are many ways to improve efficiency with both my CAm work and just using mach to it's full advantage. I am getting ready to buy a nice electronic edge finder which I hope to turn into a probe so I can take advantage of the probing goodies in mach but I still have to learn more about that right now... Thanks in advance and thank you very much for this amazing software.... peace

Pete