Messages

81

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 with ESS and PMDX126/107 speed control issues.

« on: February 25, 2016, 03:29:17 PM »

OK - this is not at all a PMDX issue and I'm done playing "guess what non-obvious configuration is needed".  Time to get Warp9 to support their own product.  Try posting on their forums and see if anyone can explain how to get PWM out of the ESS.  Go here:

     http://warp9td.com/index.php/kunena/index

You have to create an account to even browse the forums :-(

If you find out it would be helpful to people here for you to post the settings necessary for this.

Bob

82

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 with ESS and PMDX126/107 speed control issues.

« on: February 24, 2016, 04:55:01 PM »

A couple of things from a *very* quick look through the MILL profile INI file (not the lathe version).

(1) In the ESS configuration you have Port 1 Pin 16 flagged as "active low".  It should be "active high".

(2) In the standard Mach config dialog on the "Output Signals" tab, you have the Mach4 "Spindle On" signal mapped to the SmoothStepper "Spindle RPM" signal, which you i turn have mapped to port 1 pin 16.  This doesn't sound right to me, and sounds like it would override the intended PWM on port 1 pin 16.  I don't think you should have *ANY* of the Mach4 signals on the "Output Signals" tab assigned to the "Spindle PWM" signal.

Try those changes to your MILL profile and see what happens.

Bob

83

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 with ESS and PMDX126/107 speed control issues.

« on: February 24, 2016, 12:22:48 AM »

Ok, so I tried an idea. I loaded the mach4mill profile and was able to setup the OB1 on the spindle, excellent. Everything works, better than on the lathe profile I might add. However the spindle is still not working. I cannot even get it to turn now. The relay clicks on and off when I hit an M03 code (not for M04) and the lights switch (see attached). The pmdx107 test mode works and the voltages show around 8.4v (2300rpm) at max, 2.3v at 700 RPM. As Bob recommended I tried the voltages on pin 16 and the pc_gnd and it dropped from 4.8v to 0v as hoped for. Any thoughts?

Just to make sure I understand: when you measured the 8.4V at 2300 RPM and 2.3V at 700 RPM on the (I presume) PMDX-107's Aout and Agnd terminals, was that using the PMDX-107's test mode (for full speed and 30% of full speed)?  Or was that using M3/S********* commands from Mach4?  If so, what "S" commands did you use?

And when you checked the voltage on PMDX-126 connector J6 "16" and "PC gnd" terminals, what were the "S" commands that corresponded to those voltages?  And were you able to get any voltage between 0V and 4.8V, for example by trying to set the spindle speed at 1/2 of full speed?

In the two pictures  you posted, it looks like the pin 16 LED on the PMDX-126 is on full brightness in both pictures.  The pin 16 LED should vary brightness as you change spindle RPM.  It also shows that the PMDX-107 does not see a valid PWM signal as its "PWM" LED is off, as are the "Fwd/Run" and "Rev/Dir" LEDs.

And a curiosity, though this is a secondary concern over getting the PWM to control spindle speed and DO NOT CHANGE THIS NOW - I notice that you have the PMDX-107 DIP switch #4 in the "up " position, which tells the PMDX-107 to ignore the "charge pump OK" signal.  I thought you were using the charge pump signal on pin 17 from the ESS to the PMDX-126. If so, we normally recommend having the PMDX-107 also pay attention to the charge pump signal.  This is a minor issue as the PMDx-126 should guarantee that the PWM signal is disabled if the charge pump signal goes away.  If you wish to change it, wait until the PWM issue has been fixed (debug by only changing one thing at a time, otherwise you have no way of know which change fixed the issue).

I think it may be time for you to post a copy of your profile, so we can see what you actually have configured.  You can either post just the "Machine.ini" file from profile directory (i.e. C:\Mach4Hobby\Profiles\YourProfileName\Machine.ini), or you can create a profile package and post that.  Go to the Help->Support menu and select "Create Profile Package".  You will have to change the file extension from ".m4prof" to ".zip" in order to upload it here.  I can look at the general config items but I'm not sure I can be of any help on the ESS specific settings.

Bob

84

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 with ESS only homes Z successfully, on next axis it stops.

« on: February 23, 2016, 09:01:26 AM »

I don't know if the ESS plug-in has any debug log capability, but you can try opening the Mach4 log and see if that shows anything useful.  Go to the 'Diagnostic" menu and select "Logging...".  In the "Log Facility" window, click on the "right arrow" icon (like a "play" button) to start the log.

Bob

85

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 with ESS and PMDX126/107 speed control issues.

« on: February 23, 2016, 01:49:37 AM »

Thanks Bob. Could it be possible that it is the lack of the LUA plugin not being enabled that is causing the issues? I will try the voltages at the first available moment tomorrow.

Probably not.  It doesn't matter for our plug-in, and I *suspect* it wouldn't matter for the ESS plug-in.  But I don't know.  And it doesn't hurt to have the Lua plug-in enabled.

86

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 with ESS and PMDX126/107 speed control issues.

« on: February 22, 2016, 05:35:47 PM »

Thank-you DazTheGas, you're help is very much appreciated. That setup does look virtually identical to what I had, except i have been using pins 14 & 16 as instructed by PMDX. Unfortunately I could only get a very low speed of 100rpm or a very high speed, 2300rpm, depending on whether the spindle pwm was high or low on the mach settings. This is kind of why I have been trying this OB1 route as it is something I haven't able to try...

Since you said that the PMDX-107 self-test functions work (mostly, as you commented early on that the 30% speed was off, and Steve's explanation for that), there are a couple of ways to try and verify the PWM signal is coming from the ESS on the pin that it should be coming on (pin 16 of whichever ESS port you have connected to the PMDX-126/107).  This requires a volt meter.

First, you can measure the voltage on the PMDX-107's output terminals.  put the black meter lead on the "AGnd" terminal and the red meter lead on the "Aout" terminal.  The voltage *should* vary linearly with spindle speed from 0 to 10V as Steve commented here (https://www.machsupport.com/forum/index.php/topic,31970.msg222550.html#msg222550).

You can also put the volt meter on the PMDX-126 on connector J6 with the black lead on the "PC gnd" terminal and the red lead on the "16" terminal.  Here, the voltage should vary linearly between 0V (approx) and +5V.  If you don't see this varying with spindle speed, then the PWM signal is not appearing, or at least is not appearing where it needs to appear.  Or, to be thorough, there may be something wrong with the PMDX-126.  But if you can assign a signal like "spindle fwd" or "spindle on" to pin 16 and watch it go to 5V and 0V, the PMDX-126 is OK.

Bob

87

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 with ESS and PMDX126/107 speed control issues.

« on: February 22, 2016, 05:35:02 PM »

Any recommendations on what plugins should be selected? The mill one has them all?

Definitely the Lua plug-in and definitely NOT the simulator plug-in.  You can leave all the others disabled until you need them.

Bob

88

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 with ESS and PMDX126/107 speed control issues.

« on: February 22, 2016, 03:33:37 PM »

Many thanks for your video, it has pointed me in the correct direction. However, as the attached images show, motor 6 doesn't show in the axis mapping tab at all. And when I click apply and close the window, and reopen it, the OB1 tick is restored to an X. Any ideas?

Check in the Mach4 config "Motors" tab. If the axis mapping tab only allows you to select 2 motors I would guess that you only have 2 motors enabled in the "Motors" tab (enabled means check marks next to the "Motor0", "Motor1", etc.).  From the 2nd image you posted I would guess that you have only Motor0 and Motor1 enabled.

Bob

89

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 with ESS and PMDX126/107 speed control issues.

« on: February 22, 2016, 10:23:43 AM »

I would check if you realy need the charge pump that's a old school thing a properly set up E stop should be all you need. (it will be argued about)

A minor quibble - how about "motion device dependent" instead of "old school".  If you are using a PC parallel port (I know, this thread has an ESS), then the charge pump is still worth using, even with Mach4.  The charge pump helps protect against the case where the computer may be starting up (or re-booting) and the machine is powered on.  The operating system toggles various lines on the parallel port during startup in an attempt to detect what kind of printer may be attached, which can cause things to turn on (even briefly) that the operator may not be expecting.

If you are running some other motion device (ESS as in this thread, or SmartBOBs or other such devices), it depends on how the motion controller behaves during its power-on cycle and before it is configured and running with Mach4.  Yes, from what I've seen the charge pump is less of a requirement for these configurations, but it can still provide an additional level of safety (or peace of mind).

Bob

90

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach 4 / PMDX 422 Set Up - Limits and Homing

« on: February 22, 2016, 10:10:09 AM »

Given that you are seeing the home indicators going active, before you send us that Mach4 profile package (or after, if you've already sent it, then "in addition") I"d like you to create a plug-in debug log that includes the homing sequence.  The instructions for this are posted here in item (4) in our SmartBOB FAQ section:

http://www.pmdx.com/PMDX-Forums/index.php?topic=75.0

Enable the debug log, then exit Mach4.  Restart Mach4 then try to home one of the axis.  When the homing fails, disable the debug log and create the profile package as described in the FAQ.

It looks like the MachSupport forums don't allow uploading a file with the default profile package file extension (.m4prof), so you may need to rename the file to ".zip".  Or you can email it to us at the support email address listed here: http://pmdx.com/support.

Bob