Messages

91

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

« on: February 21, 2016, 09:44:31 PM »

OB stands for out of band you just tick it in motors then in axis mapping you tick it then in the spindle setup you put what OB motor it is you don't set anything for it any where else.

then in your outputs you set the pin's

I admit up front that I know nothing about the Mach4 ESS plug-in configuration (and only bits and pieces about the ESS Mach3 plug-in config).  But it sounds strange to me that the ESS would map a motor to an out-of-band axis in order to send PWM for spindle speed control.  The PWM is *not* a motor.  I would not expect the PWM to take the place of Motor0, Motor1, etc.  But like I said, I haven't looked at the Mach4 ESS config screens.

Bob

92

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

« on: February 21, 2016, 09:11:56 PM »

Curiosity - when, for example, you home the X axis, look at the Mach4 "Machine Diagnostics" screen and see of Mach4 shows the "X Home" input going active at all.  If not, bring up the SmartBOB "real time status" display (go to the Mach4 "Diagnostics" menu and select "PMDX SmartBOB", then from our dialog click on "Show real-time Input/Output Status" button.  Then see if the expected input signal goes active.

And still send us the profile package :-)

Bob

93

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Add a laser to my CNC

« on: February 15, 2016, 02:47:48 AM »

From your testing it is apparent that you cannot switch your laser beam on/off by using the PWM signal so why not just use an imaginary axis direction signal as mentioned and demonstrated here…  http://www.machsupport.com/forum/index.php/topic,31495.msg218362.html#msg218362

The danger in using an otherwise unused motor "direction" signal to turn the laser on and off is that EStop will NOT necessarily turn off the laser.  EStop halts motion but does not return any motor "direction" signal to a per-determined, known state.  Certainly not on the SmartBOB boards, and I'd bet coffee money not on any other motion controller device.

Bob

94

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach 4 V2 Windows 10

« on: February 14, 2016, 10:47:44 PM »

Just got a new computer and tried to download Mach4, but AVG (free version) keeps sending the Mach4 downloader to it's Virus Vault. If I disable AVG and run the downloader, Mach4 loads, but when I try to open/run it (with AVG activated again) AVG once again blocks Mach4 stating that it's infected with a virus!
Windows 10 Home 64 bit, AVG Free Version.
Anyone else having this problem?

Yeah, AVG falsely detects Mach4 build 2872 as containing the Win32/Heur virus.  And not just on Win10.  I've confirmed with the Mach4 developers that build 2872 is *not* infected.  So your choices are to either drop back to 2803 (which did not trigger AVG at least on my PCs), or disable AVG when you run Mach4.  I've found that even if you tell AVG to let the program run, Mach4 will not run successfully.  You have to disable AVG.

Bob

95

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach 4 freezes occasionally at spindle control

« on: February 14, 2016, 10:41:41 PM »

Occasionally Mach 4 freezes when it encounters a spindle control. I can run the same G code file numerous times and Mach 4 will all of the sudden stop at a M03 command. The cycle start button will be grayed out. Sometimes I can disable Mach 4 and re-enable it to get the cycle start button to be slectable again. Sometimes this does not work so I have to reboot Mach 4 again. I am running build 2797 with SmartBob 33.159 plugin.

Please post this issue on the PMDX support forums (http://www.pmdx.com/PMDX-Forums/), since you are running a PMDX-410 and PMDX-132.  The Machsupport forums are not our primary support venue, and this will get into plug-in and SmartBOB specific troubleshooting.

Bob

96

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Add a laser to my CNC

« on: February 14, 2016, 10:32:03 PM »

First - you have two calls to mc.mcSpindleSetDirection( inst, 1 ) in you code.  You only need one.  The second shouldn't cause any problems, but is not needed and for the sake of code clarity should be removed.

Second - *IF* you want a spindle RPM of "100" to be the maximum intensity, then you need to edit the spindle RPM range to be from 0 to 100.  Go to the Mach4 "configure" menu and select "Mach...".  Then click on the "Spindle" tab.  In the first row, marked "0", make sure the MinRPM is zero and the MaxRPM is 100 (or whatever RPM you want to correspond to the maximum laser intensity).  If your mc.mcSpindleSetCommandRPM() call sets the RPM to the maximum value, then the SRO slider should NOT be able to make it brighter.  It should be able to make it dimmer.

Third - the documentation for your laser's PWM input (that I found at the link you poster earlier) says that the PWM input will control the laser intensity from 15% to 100%.  That implies (to me) that the lowest power setting attainable via PWM control is 15% of max brightness.  Outputting 0% PWM apparently *still* gives you 15% brightness.  So you need some other control to turn the laser off.

Are you using any other signal to control the laser on/off?  Or are you only using the PWM signal on Pin16?

Regarding the EStop not turning off the spindle/laser - when you say "the LED is on when estop is pressed", do you mean when you press an external EStop button (that is wired into the EStop input on the PMDX-132)?  Or do you mean when you click the "Disable" button in the lower left corner of the Mach4 screen?

Finally - please generate a Mach4 profile package (go to Mach4 "Help" and select "Support" and then "Package Current Profile").  Save the file somewhere that you can find it and then either email it to me at bob at this domain, or upload it here.  In order to upload the profile package, you will need to either (a) change the file extension from ".m4prof" to something like ".zip", or zip the profile package into a zip file.  This will hopefully make it so I don't have to keep asking questions about your configuration.

Bob

97

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Add a laser to my CNC

« on: February 13, 2016, 10:43:11 PM »

Bob - thanks. I got to play with the spindle a little more today and it works as you said. The problem I am having is I want to position the laser at the 0,0 point of my work piece. Until I run the g code file Mach 4 does not have a laser setting so I can not turn the laser on using the spindle control to center the work piece. Is there any way I can make a button that turns on the spindle to a known setting?

Yes, there are a couple of ways to do this.

(1) In my test screen sets I've added a DRO near the "Spindle CW" button.  I set the "DRO Code" to "Spindle RPM", and set the "Format" field to "%.1f" which displays 1 fractional digit.  I don't remember why I did that as I don't need that kind of resolution.  Setting to "%.0f" will display no fractional decimal digits.

or...

(2) Add a button. Then edit the button's "Left Up Script" to something like this (UNTESTED!!!!):

local inst = mc.mcGetInstance();
local rpm = 1000;    -- Set this to the actual RPM you want as your starting point
mc.mcSpindleSetCommandRPM( inst, rpm );
mc.mcSpindleSetDirection( inst, 1 );    -- 1 == forward, 0 == off, -1 == reverse

The other problem is with eStop. Sometimes it turns off the spindle and sometimes it does not. The LED on Mach 4 even shows the spindle on when it does not turn off the spindle. I am using Mach 4 (not the latest but one rev back) and PMDX 410 with a PMDX 132 breakout board.

Rats.  I don't know *WHY* I thought you had an ESS.  I could have sworn I read that earlier in this thread, but (now) obviously not.  Well then, I guess in all fairness I need to say that maybe this is an issue in OUR plug-in.  So I'm going to get niggly here:

- Exactly which version of Mach4 are you running
- Exactly which versions of our plug-in are you running
- Which LED on the Mach4 screen is on when the spindle is still on during EStop?
- Which Mach4 output signal do you have controlling the spindle on/off (ex "Spindle On" or "Spindle Fwd")?
- Which SmartBOB output pin do you have that Mach4 signal mapped to (ex "Pin1", "Pin11", etc.)?

I'm sure I'll have more questions later, but this is a start.

Bob

98

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Add a laser to my CNC

« on: February 12, 2016, 12:14:31 PM »

So what does the SRO% represent when you don't have a g code file loaded. I use this slider and the Spindle CW button to turn on my laser so I can focus it to the right level.

SRO is "spindle rate override" and changes the spindle speed to the given PERCENTAGE of the currently commanded spindle speed.  For example, with SRO = 100%, enter 1000 as the spindle RPM (presuming that is a valid RPM for you setup).  The spindle should turn at 1000 RPM, or in your case the PWM should reflect a duty cycle of ((commanded RPM) / (maximum RPM)) * 100.  Now if you slide the SRO slider up to 150%, the actual spindle speed will change to (1000 * 150%) = 1500 RPM.  The "commanded" spindle speed is still 1000 RPM.

So I am presuming that you set *some* non-zero spindle speed ("S" command) before you try sliding the SRO slider.  Because if the current spindle speed is zero, the SRO slider shouldn't change anything until a non-zero spindle speed is entered.

You can edit the screen set (please copy wxMach.set to some other name and use/edit that so you don't loose your changes in the next Mach4 upgrade/install) and change the SRO slider to be "spindle RPM".  Select the slider and change the "Code" field to "Spindle RPM".  You should also change the name and label, and min/max limits.  I would suggest configuring your spindle range as "1 to 100" in the "Spindle" tab of the normal Mach4 configuration dialog.

Also, when I hit eStop the laser will stay on (it looks like a lower output) is there anyway I can turn off the laser (spindle) on an eStop?

Something definitely isn't right here.  EStop (or Mach4 Disable) should turn off ALL outputs, including PWM.  It may be that the PWM is getting set to 0% duty cycle as it should, which maybe the laser interprets and "on but very dim"?  But I thought you also had some output signal controlling the on/off signal (or was it turning power on and off).  If you do, THAT output should also go "in-active" during EStop and turn the laser off.  If that is not happening, it sounds like a possible bug in the SmoothStepper plug-in or something unconventional in your configuration that prevents the laser from turning off.

For example, when I try this with our plug-in, when EStop is activated I see messages from the Mach4 core to turn off my "Spindle On" output and it sets the spindle speed to 0.  All the outputs on our board turn off and the PWM output goes to steady-state zero volts (0% duty cycle).

Bob

99

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Add a laser to my CNC

« on: February 11, 2016, 09:01:19 PM »

I found out what was going on with the manual spindle control of the laser. If you set the spindle too high the laser does not see the PWM signal. The slider bar for spindle is defaulted 0-250%. Not sure why it goes that high? I changed this to 0-100%

Are you sure that the slider wasn't the "spindle speed override" and not plain "spindle speed".  Specially since it is marked in percent.  In the wxMach screen set, the slider in the "Spindle" group is marked "SRO%" and the values go from 1 to 250.  In the wx4 screen set, the slider in the spindle group is marked "SRO" and goes from 50% to 150%.  Those take the currently commanded spindle speed and increase it or decrease it by a percentage.

100

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 Printer Port Discussions

« on: February 06, 2016, 09:57:39 PM »

As Steve said, the PMDX-411 would work with the Geckos.  And we'd love to sell you one.  But I would like to clarify something you said just to be sure.

... would like to move to Mach4 with its new Darwin plug in for parallel port systems.  Unfortunately all of the USB to Parallel products I find talk only about stepper motors.

If you want to use the Darwin plug-in, that talks directly to a parallel port in your PC, *IF* your PC has a parallel port on the motherboard or in an internal expansion slot (like PCI bus), and *IF* your PC is running a 32-bit version of Windows.  With Darwin and a parallel port in your PC, you don't need a "USB to parallel port" product.  If you want a "USB to parallel port" like the PMDX-411 (see note below), then you don't need the Darwin plug-in.

** note** While the PMDX-411 plugs into the USB port and emulates signals from a parallel port, it is not a generic "USB to parallel port".  It is specifically a motion control device that presents signals that are compatible with a parallel port.  It will not work with printer drivers, etc.  On the other hand, there are devices available that are indeed generic "USB to parallel port" adapters, and you can connect things like printers to them.  Those will NOT work with Darwin.  Darwin needs actual parallel port hardware in the PC.