Messages

1

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Can't match Mach4 spindle commands to actual spindle speeds

« on: August 02, 2022, 04:11:18 PM »

Steve had the solution. I did use the 107 calibration routine but must not have found (heard) the maximum rpms in the soindle and over drove the pot. Once I set speed at 18000 in Mach4 and then use the pot and tach to match, all speeds up and down the spindle range were within 5% of settings!

2

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Can't match Mach4 spindle commands to actual spindle speeds

« on: July 31, 2022, 01:39:07 PM »

Steve,

Thanks. We'll give the pot adjustment a try. We figured if the standard pot calibration was working then that was enough. Your explanation is very helpful.

3

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Can't match Mach4 spindle commands to actual spindle speeds

« on: July 31, 2022, 01:37:30 PM »

averagejoe,

This is a machine in a maker space so many of the operators are new to this. As such we have them go through the fundamentals and safety practices on this cnc router. One of the fundamentals is to understand the relationship of feeds and speeds to their materials, tool life and quality of the project. I expect most of the members of this forum are experienced enough to know (hear) when the machine is not running properly but these new users typically don't. Part of the class we give them is to use feed and speed applications like GWizard and, at least for us, it's annoying when we know that they're using and adopting these variables, but their settings aren't matched by the machine operation. In the overall scheme of things is this a serious problem? No, but if something isn't working properly, we like to fix it.

4

Mach4 General Discussion / Can't match Mach4 spindle commands to actual spindle speeds

« on: July 29, 2022, 09:02:08 PM »

This may not be a Mach4 issue and instead with either ESS (Smoothstepper) or PMDX but questions on the PMDX forum has been met with crickets so far so I’m going to try here.

We have ab AVID 4848STD CNC and upgraded from a router to a 220V water cooled spindle running off a Huanwang VFD. Also running a PMDX-126 BoB with a PMDX-107 spindle driver board. The conversion went reasonably well and the PMDX-107 calibration was spot on giving us just under maximum spindle speed (24000rpm) on the top end and just a bit over the minimum (8000rpm) on the low (30%) end. Spindle start, stop, reverse controls are working but our problem is with the speed settings. We can’t get the Mach4 speed settings to reasonably match the actual spindle speeds. With a tachometer we measured these discrepancies.

S23900  turns the spindle at 23961
S20000          "                    23961
S17500          "                    21420
S15000          "                    18365
S12000          "                    14665
S9000            "                    10970
S8000            "                      9740

I believe all our ESS,126,107and VFD settings are good as all else is working fine and the actual pin or jumper settings are consistent with documentation and settings noted in other threads in the PMDX forum.

Could this be a setting in Mach4 that we’re missing? I’m attaching both the Mach4 and ESS spindle control screens with our current settings for reference.

Thanks

5

General Mach Discussion / Re: Problem converting from router to spindle

« on: July 26, 2022, 12:30:46 PM »

Now working. Just a case of working through the VFD and ESS settings

6

General Mach Discussion / Re: Problem converting from router to spindle

« on: July 26, 2022, 12:28:29 PM »

Now working. It was just a case of working through the VFD and ESS settings

7

Mach4 General Discussion / New MDI input behavior

« on: July 22, 2022, 07:20:01 PM »

Just converted from a router to a spindle on my AVID CNC and the MDI input feature seems to have changed. When I had the router I could place GCode commands (mostly M3 & M5) into the MDI input area and see all executed. Now with the spindle in place (PMDX-126 & PMDX-107) I can input multiple speed change settings but once I input an M3 the MDI input is locked and I have to use the disable button to turn off the spindle. All these MDI inputs were part of the integration and troubleshooting process. Anyone know what's causing this?

Thanks

8

General Mach Discussion / Problem converting from router to spindle

« on: July 19, 2022, 03:31:03 PM »

We're running an AVID 4848 STD with Mach4 and the Smoothstepper and it'been fine. Both the router and the dust collector started up with M3 which sent a 5v signal from the PMDX-126 to a relay for both. However we decided to upgrade to a spindle and with a new mount from AVID for the spindle we easily got the VFD and spindle installed and working. Where we're stuck is getting Mach4 to control the spindle. We did add the PMDX-107 spindle control board onto the PMDX-126 and we know the wiring is correct to the VFD and we've made what we believe are the correct adjustments in the Smoothstepper plugin and Mach4 controls to recognize the VFD/Spindle but we're having no luck getting it to work. If anyone happens to have a setup like this and has it working we'd appreciate a review of the Smoothstepper and Mach4 settings. On the other hand this may be a PMDX setup problem and while we've set the jumpers and switches on both the 126 and 107 per instructions, I'll be reaching out to them as well with this same request for assistance.

Thanks

9

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Using M2xx codes

« on: February 02, 2022, 07:40:39 PM »

Never found those macros but with ArtSoft's help desk support they pointed me to 2 macros that are provided in my profile's macros directory.
m114 will turn on an output, defined in the macro
m115 will turn off the output.

10

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Using M2xx codes

« on: February 01, 2022, 09:52:16 PM »

Yep. M65 calling a macro to toggle on an Output seems the best solution. However I'm hung up on how to write that macro. I've looked at the sample macros ion my profile's macro directory and the structure is fairly straightforward. What I'm missing is the function that enables and disables an Output. Anyone who can show me a sample of how that function would be called in a macro would be most appreciated.