Hello everyone!!! Hope all is well. I'm going to try to keep this short, but it will likely be long in order for me to provide all the information and the steps I have been through. I built my first machine with the help of everyone here
. Four years later what I intended doing versus what I was doing was two totally different stories. I design and build equipment at work, so I thought at first I would just build a bigger machine. After much investigation, I decided I could purchase a Chinese machine(Roctec) servo driven. Yaskawa servos, HSD Spindle, so on so forth. I drove a few hours from here to look at one and I was impressed. Unfortunately they were having control problems so I didn't commit. Later decided that with as well as everything else was built, if I had to do a controller upgrade I would. Took several months to get here and unfortunately. One of the selling points to me was it was Mach controlled. I had some familiarity and a great support forum. Of course when it finally got here I was so excited. Only bad thing is it wouldn't run. Hood told me I should try a CS-Lab controller. I did and for the last four years it has ran like a champ. I purchased another controller for a lathe project, that I haven't finished yet but its in process. I haven't run the other machine in some time. My dad lives in Texas and is a big wood worker. Hes been going nuts to get a cnc for awhile now and talked me out of this one. Of course he asked me if I would put the same control system on this. So it got CSMIO/IP-M, MPG Module, hard wired pendant, and all new digital stepper motor drives. Essentially I rewired the whole panel. Finished up soldering the db-25 connectors to the pendant this weekend and was ready for power. Powered up nicely, all led lights on the controller and mpg module were as they should be. All the inputs that were suppose to be on were. Checked the estop on the machine and the pendant. All was well. No problem I thought lets get this pc hooked up and start communicating. After a little time I had established communication. I set all the inputs up and made sure they were flagging via the plug in screen. Next I went to the diagnostic screen in Mach and verified. Next I set up the mpg. Hit the tab key on the keyboard and checked axis and increment selection. Okay thats all good, now lets get these motors moving and tuned. I thought Ill have this thing running tonight. WRONG!!! Now i went through the plugin and Mach and set the motor outputs up. Turned my speed down and hit the arrow key. Nothing happened. I checked all my wiring again. Must have done it a dozen times before powering up. Check power supplies and drives have no errors. I must have missed something I thought. Go over to my other machine to verify and still cant find anything. Jog is enabled, the E stop is working, what am I missing. Then I noticed when I hit the jog keys that the DRO numbers dont shift. Well the motors arent going to move unless Mach tells it too. I called it quits for the night. Next day at work I put mach on my work station at lunch. Done a real quick set up, hit the jog key numbers on DRO moved. Okay thats an older XP computer that I built. I will install the newest version of Mach 3 and start over. After doing that when I hit the jog key the motor moved, but then the pc locked up. Restarted everything and when I hit jog pc locked up. Must have a pc problem, its been in the dusty shop for several years now. Night 3 of debug I get a new hard drive and put Windows Seven on. After all its whats running flawless on my other machine. Go through the whole set up on the pc then start with mach. Plugin is done, firmware is done and matches and we have communication. This time I just do the basic setup to test the motors. Nothing. DRO doesn't shift either. Next I disconnect the mpg module and wire around the estop that was on it. Maybe thats it. Same old story. By this time I am at the end of my rope. One last thing to try. I get my pc off my big machine and connect it. I boot it up off the backup drive because I dont want to make any changes that might cause me problems when I put it back on the other machine. I had to change the plugin so the firmware would match up but thats it. The machines are wired identical with the only difference being a servo enable output. Now I know this is a working system. I run it every week. Same problem. This is an Ethernet controller but I am beginning to think it is a controller problem. I haven't contacted CS-Lab yet because I thought there might be something silly I missed, but it should have took off with the other computer. If anyone can help I would greatly appreciate it. I attached my xml file to a no motor movement post under CS-Lab. Thought I might get more response here. Thanks for all the help.
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