Messages

161

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Various Issues I have run across with Mach 4

« on: March 18, 2019, 03:25:32 PM »

If this is only happening with the spindle, and you have an ESS, you should explore
the ability of the ESS to control the spindle acceleration.

162

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Noob question on Z Axis setup using soft limits

« on: January 15, 2019, 01:50:19 PM »

You should be able to set Z soft min to a value suitable to protect your table.

Granted this may simply move to problem to being one of the machine stopping
when Z min is exceeded, but this is what you actually want if the goal is to
prevent cutting the table.

163

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Noob question on Z Axis setup using soft limits

« on: January 15, 2019, 01:26:52 PM »

The request to go to Z0.200000 is indeed outside the soft limits that you have set.

It is unfortunate that the sample file asks for motion more positive than Z=0 as
it is normal practice to call home at Z=0.

You can get around this by setting up your homing to call the homed location for
Z to be 0.200000 or greater. For example go to  Config > Control> and select the
tab for Homing/SoftLimits. In the row for Z and the column for Home Offset enter
the value 0.250000 and in the column for Soft Max enter the same value.

In the real world, just avoid generating G-code that requests values outside of
the range configured for your machine. You can also utilize work offsets such
that work Z=0.200000 is located at less than machine coordinate Z=0.000000

164

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: SmoothStepper Motor Steps Per Unit

« on: January 12, 2019, 09:41:49 PM »

In that case your 40000 steps per inch would be correct.

20 TPI  x  200 full-steps/rev  x 10 micro-steps/full-step  =  40000

Steve Stallings
PMDX

165

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Is there an advantage to using modbus VS wires to VFD?

« on: January 11, 2019, 11:11:20 AM »

MODBUS can be more powerful if you need more than basic speed/FWD/REV controls.

MODBUS setup will usually be more complex, especially if no one else has an example
of how your VFD control was implemented.

An analog voltage VFD interface requires a PWM to analog conversion hardware device,
which I gather that you already have.

MODBUS requires a USB to serial RS-485 unless your VFD has an Ethernet-TCP feature.
This feature is an option card for the MS300.

Features like speed feedback and advanced control features are VFD dependent and
will require someone to develop the configuration and/or scripts to implement them
in Mach4.

166

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: New Forum! - work around for searches

« on: January 09, 2019, 08:20:17 AM »

The forum has been updated and the workaround above is no longer needed.

167

Mach4 General Discussion / New Forum! - work around for searches

« on: January 07, 2019, 07:17:15 PM »

For the duration of the MachSupport forums being located at:

  forums.machsupport.com/forum

instead of:

  www.machsupport.com/forum

You will find that links from Google or other messages in
the forum itself may point to the place where the forum
used to be. For example:

www.machsupport.com/forum/index.php?topic=27571.0

Such links will result in being redirected to the home page
of the forum.

The link can be hand edited to replace the "www" with "forum"
and the edited link will go to the correct location.

forum.machsupport.com/forum/index.php?topic=27571.0

If the link seems to have a ; followed by other characters
at the end of the link, strip off the ; and everything
behind it.

I do not know of any work around for the forum itself not
being able to search, so for now you will be forced to use
Google to search. Including the keywords "Machsupport" and
"forum" may help narrow down the returned hits from Google.

Regards,
Steve Stallings
www.PMDX.com

168

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: New Forum! - work around for searches

« on: January 07, 2019, 07:15:56 PM »

For the duration of the MachSupport forums being located at:

  forum.machsupport.com/forum

instead of:

  www.machsupport.com/forum

You will find that links from Google or other messages in
the forum itself may point to the place where the forum
used to be. For example:

www.machsupport.com/forum/index.php?topic=27571.0

Such links will result in being redirected to the home page
of the forum.

The link can be hand edited to replace the "www" with "forum"
and the edited link will go to the correct location.

forum.machsupport.com/forum/index.php?topic=27571.0

If the link seems to have a ; followed by other characters
at the end of the link, strip off the ; and everything
behind it.

I do not know of any work around for the forum itself not
being able to search, so for now you will be forced to use
Google to search. Including the keywords "Machsupport" and
"forum" may help narrow down the returned hits from Google.

Regards,
Steve Stallings
www.PMDX.com

169

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Hybrid Stepper Setup in M4

« on: December 08, 2018, 10:25:11 AM »

OK, this manual does show a true differential input connection at the bottom of page 52. The diagram of what is inside the servo drive looks the same, but I suspect that it uses a much faster opto-coupler.

Here is a link to a converter that accepts single ended TTL and provides a differential output. Cheap enough, but only one signal channel per board. It is bi-directional, but you can just ignore the RXD signal on the TTL side.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/202085425330?

I am confused by your description of "10 cliks before I see a 0.001 move" and then "and NO backlash". This sounds like the very definition of backlash to me.

170

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Hybrid Stepper Setup in M4

« on: December 07, 2018, 06:10:18 PM »

The user manual that I found for these drivers is here:

https://motion.schneider-electric.com/lmd/downloads/literature/LMDE.pdf

According to this manual the driver has inputs that are conventional opto-isolators
with a full wave diode bridge ahead of them to steer the current. See page 51.

They are NOT differential, and furthermore the manual states that these inputs are
only rated for 5 KHz maximum frequency signals. See page 22.

Opto-isolators of this style have asymmetrical rise and fall times. This may be part of
the reason that return moves do not come back to the same place.