Messages

1

General Mach Discussion / Re: Spindle at speed signal

« on: October 23, 2010, 10:02:17 PM »

AS FAR as the G0 /G1 thing that will not be possible that I am aware of.

Hope that helps,(;-) TP
 

That is dissapointing. Most CNC controls have had this ability for 25 years. Is there any hope of it being intergrated? It really would be a time saver if you had a lot of tool changes.

2

General Mach Discussion / Re: Spindle at speed signal

« on: October 23, 2010, 12:31:59 AM »

I don't really need to monitor true spindle speed. Most VFDs can output a signal when they are at the commanded speed. I want to use that signal to tell mach to proceed. I coud probably rig that up in a script some way.

The real trick would be to get mach3 to execute G0 moves while the spindle is accelerating. Then wait to do G1, G2, G3, et al. until it sees the "at speed" signal.

3

General Mach Discussion / Spindle at speed signal

« on: October 22, 2010, 11:57:05 PM »

I am trying to find a way to have mach3 read that the spindle is at the commanded speed before making a cutting move.

Currently I am using the timed pause feature (wait 5 second so you are sure that the spindle is up to speed). What I want is for the machine to proceed with rapid moves while the spindle is accelerating, then wait for the "spindle at speed" signal from the VFD before begining any feed moves. I had this working in EMC2. The current method is very slow. I have to wait the same amount of time whether I choose 200RPM or 8000RPM.

This is a very common feature on VMCs. I have never seen a "real" control that did not have this feature.

I cannot find an example online.

-Wes

4

General Mach Discussion / Mach3 crashes with known program

« on: October 16, 2010, 09:41:51 PM »

I have a real bad problem with mach3. I am running a 3 axis vertical mill. Here is what happens:

I load a program I have run successfully many times before. I set the zeros and hit start. The spindle comes on, but instead of accelerating to the commanded RPM (say M3 S7000), it gives an error "commanded RPM too low, defaulting to minimum". The spindle then runs at the minimum speed (say 800RPM). Then it disregards the rest of the program and just runs -Z until it crashes or I hit E-stop.

If I click the spindle override to 101% the spindle will immediately accelerate to the correct RPM. That seems to also stop the maching from dropping in Z. The spindle speed seems to ocsillate though. It rises and falls about 500RPM every 5 or 6 seconds.

What is going on here? I'm running a Dell Optiplex 260. I already ruined one fixture with this error. It doesn't seem to happen everytime. Restarting the computer sometimes makes the problem go away for a while.

Thanks everyone

-Wes