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1

SmoothStepper USB / PMDX-126 and SS K1 relay (spindle power) control

« on: January 30, 2011, 02:50:06 PM »

This is making me crazy. 

I have recently purchased a PMDX-126 and a SS.  Basic install is going fine, USB and Mach driver installed, they are talking, I can move all 3 axis of my machine. 

Attempting to get the motor control relay that is on the PMDX-126 to work.  I configure the ports/pins to use port 1, pin 2, for step and port 1, pin 14 for direction for relay K1 and K2 respectivly.

Spindle control is enabled, in step/dir mode.

If I set active low the relay energizes and active high it denergizes (love those LED's indicating output state on the PMDX-126).  This sort of tells me that the electrical connectivity is there, and that I have the pin assignments right.

A M3 or M4 command on the MDI do not seem to control the relay though.  M1 has no effect either.  I am at a loss for what to try next!  No a show stopper to running my machine as I had no motor relay control set up so there is the old manual on-off switch, but....

2

General Mach Discussion / Yet another charge pump question

« on: January 07, 2011, 07:08:28 PM »

HI,

I am setting up Mach 3 with a Geckodrive G540.  

When I turn the charge pump switch off on the front panel of the G540, I have normal stepper motor control.  Good so far.

When the charge pump switch is on, and Mach 3 is not running, the G540 fault light come on, so far so good.

I have port 1 pin 16 configured to output the charge pump signal in Mach 3.  The LPT1 port is in EPP.

If I set "charge pump on in estop" true in the config, I can press reset in Mach 3 and the G540 goes ready.  I suspect this tells me that the electrical connectivity for pin 16 is fine.  Pressing RESET does not fault the g540, as I would expect with the charge pump signal always active.  the hardware estop switch does fault the g540 normally though, and I see estop toggle on the diagnostics screen as i would expect.

If "charge pump on in estop" is set to false, when I send a reset, the g540 flashes green and immediately goes back to red (fault), I suspect due to the estop signal coming from the g540 not toggeling to estop false quickly enough, perhaps?  A race condition of sorts, I think.....

When the reset is pushed and I get a green flash on the g540, I also see a very fast flash on the diagnostics screen "emergency" LED.  I also get the "fix inputs" box pops up at various time in this process when it loses track of the estop state.

Running drivertest gives what the docs say is normal results, a nice straight line with few or no glitches.

I tried setting the charge pump to active low with no real change apparent, either way.

What am I missing here?  I desire that the g540 fault when RESET is pressed, or is it working the way it is supposed to?

Thanks!

Don Gates