Messages

21

SmoothStepper USB / PMDX-126 and SS K1 relay (spindle power) control

« on: January 30, 2011, 02:50:06 PM »

This is making me crazy. 

I have recently purchased a PMDX-126 and a SS.  Basic install is going fine, USB and Mach driver installed, they are talking, I can move all 3 axis of my machine. 

Attempting to get the motor control relay that is on the PMDX-126 to work.  I configure the ports/pins to use port 1, pin 2, for step and port 1, pin 14 for direction for relay K1 and K2 respectivly.

Spindle control is enabled, in step/dir mode.

If I set active low the relay energizes and active high it denergizes (love those LED's indicating output state on the PMDX-126).  This sort of tells me that the electrical connectivity is there, and that I have the pin assignments right.

A M3 or M4 command on the MDI do not seem to control the relay though.  M1 has no effect either.  I am at a loss for what to try next!  No a show stopper to running my machine as I had no motor relay control set up so there is the old manual on-off switch, but....

22

General Mach Discussion / Re: Yet another charge pump question

« on: January 16, 2011, 02:49:08 PM »

I spoke with Brian briefly at Cabin Fever expo... folks, there are *way* cool things coming in the new version on Mach 3, especially for the advanced users.  He expressed interest in looking into the charge pump race condition he described.

Look for parallel port support to eventually go away, it is just too hard to do in the Win 7 64 bit world.  External motion controllers are the way forward, smoothstepper being one example of this.  He spoke of a low cost ethernet connected external motion controller, circa $30, as being a promising desired external motion controller soloution.  The existing PP driver that we all know and love was two man-years in development, and would require a similar level of effort to develop a 64 bit PP driver.  OK, so say they do that... but the general trend was to depreciate PP interfaces on PC's so they payback is not likely to be there from Artsoft's perspective, which makes sense.

23

General Mach Discussion / Re: Yet another charge pump question

« on: January 14, 2011, 07:29:07 PM »

I was thinking along the same lines.  I did indeed try a different PP, same results.  I am stumped.  I do know that when I turn on the G540 box the FM radio goes to white noise, this thing generates some no small amount of RFI.  Nope, no error messages in Mach.

24

General Mach Discussion / Re: Yet another charge pump question

« on: January 14, 2011, 07:22:01 PM »

But but but.... everything else is working great!  Good idea though, see what they have to say.  Sure seems like a Mach 3 problem though.   I might fire up EMC2 this weekend and see if I similar behavior, I have been wanting to play with that any way and it's an excuse to buy a new hard drive.  Really do want to go with Mach 3 though, for sure.

I am going to fly up to York, PA for the Cabin Fever Expo, I will run into quite a few CNC'ers there and I will ask around.  I *think* a Mach 3 / Artsoft guy is going to be there too.

25

General Mach Discussion / Re: Yet another charge pump question

« on: January 14, 2011, 06:00:33 PM »

Still no joy on the charge pump thing.  Anybody have any ideas? 

26

General Mach Discussion / Re: Yet another charge pump question

« on: January 09, 2011, 03:25:12 PM »

Yep, that works, and the inputs test out fine.  However, I do NOT want charge pump on in estop, however I may be forced to operate that way.

27

General Mach Discussion / Re: Yet another charge pump question

« on: January 09, 2011, 01:54:33 PM »

Yep, I thought the same thing, tried it both active high annd active low,  can't recall at the moment but one worked and one didn't, sort of toggled basic function (i.e., one was clearly broke and one worked as expected) and did not seem to have an effect on the charge pump thing at all.  Thanks for the suggestion though!  

28

General Mach Discussion / Re: Yet another charge pump question

« on: January 09, 2011, 01:03:23 PM »

 If I disble the estop input in Mach 3 (port 1, pin 15) then the g540 toggles normally, however it will no sense the hardware estop switch as I would expect.  I think it might be a Mach 3 timing problem.

Suspected sequence of events:
Starting from a Mach 3 "not ready" state, with port 1 pin 15 enabled:

1. I press Mach 3 "reset"
2. Mach 3 enables the charge pump out on pin 16
3. G540 goes ready momentarily (flashes green)
4. Mach 3 checks estop input and still sees estop on pin 15 (flashes estop input red)
5. Mach 3 turns off charge pump signal on pin 16
6. g540 faults due to lack of charge pump signal
7. Mach 3 faults on estop

If there was a short delay in checking estop status I bet this would work.  I like the idea that the motor controller would fault if the motion control software is not running, and I cannot have Mach 3 not fault when the estop switch is activated.  Hmmmmm.

I am running the demo version (still building my machine) version R3.043.022 on Windows 7 Ultimate. It's a AMD 64 machine about a year old, 4gb ram, 2.2 ghz, vanilla machine....

----------------------

29

General Mach Discussion / Re: Yet another charge pump question

« on: January 07, 2011, 07:35:16 PM »

Oh, and the g540 faults, as expected, when Mach3 is shut down, and goes ready when mach 3 is started with "charge pump on in estop" = true.  Hmmmmm.

30

General Mach Discussion / Yet another charge pump question

« on: January 07, 2011, 07:08:28 PM »

HI,

I am setting up Mach 3 with a Geckodrive G540.  

When I turn the charge pump switch off on the front panel of the G540, I have normal stepper motor control.  Good so far.

When the charge pump switch is on, and Mach 3 is not running, the G540 fault light come on, so far so good.

I have port 1 pin 16 configured to output the charge pump signal in Mach 3.  The LPT1 port is in EPP.

If I set "charge pump on in estop" true in the config, I can press reset in Mach 3 and the G540 goes ready.  I suspect this tells me that the electrical connectivity for pin 16 is fine.  Pressing RESET does not fault the g540, as I would expect with the charge pump signal always active.  the hardware estop switch does fault the g540 normally though, and I see estop toggle on the diagnostics screen as i would expect.

If "charge pump on in estop" is set to false, when I send a reset, the g540 flashes green and immediately goes back to red (fault), I suspect due to the estop signal coming from the g540 not toggeling to estop false quickly enough, perhaps?  A race condition of sorts, I think.....

When the reset is pushed and I get a green flash on the g540, I also see a very fast flash on the diagnostics screen "emergency" LED.  I also get the "fix inputs" box pops up at various time in this process when it loses track of the estop state.

Running drivertest gives what the docs say is normal results, a nice straight line with few or no glitches.

I tried setting the charge pump to active low with no real change apparent, either way.

What am I missing here?  I desire that the g540 fault when RESET is pressed, or is it working the way it is supposed to?

Thanks!

Don Gates