Messages

2211

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Help with first easy script or macro (which term?) for automatic oiler

« on: August 01, 2019, 03:27:41 AM »

Hi,
you are scattering the same question over different threads.....its hard to keep up.

The basic problem to be solved is you need to know when the X and/or Y axis is moving. If so turn on the oiler, if
not turn off the oiler.

Turning an oil pump on and off is easy......deciding when is the trick here. Mark came up with a simple idea, test when
Mach is idle, ie machState==0. If its idle turn the oiler off, if Mach is in any other state then turn the oiler on.
As you pointed out that test is pretty crude.......but there are other ways.

The first idea I have is the mcMotorGetVelocity() API:

Code: [Select]

LUA Syntax:
velocity, rc = mc.mcMotorGetVel(
number mInst,
number motor)

Description:
Retreive the current velocity of a motor in counts per sec.

Parameters: Parameter Description
mInst The controller instance.
motorId An integer specifying the motor.
velocity The address of a double to receive the motor velocity.


Returns: Return Code Description
MERROR_NOERROR No Error.
MERROR_INVALID_INSTANCE The mInst parameter was out of range.
MERROR_MOTOR_NOT_FOUND The motor specified by motorId was not found.
MERROR_INVALID_ARG velocity cannot be NULL.

The second idea is a very similar API mcMotionGetVelocity():

Code: [Select]

LUA Syntax:
velocity, rc = mc.mcMotionGetVel(
number mInst,
number motorId)

Description:
Retrieve the current motor velocity in counts per second squared.

Parameters: Parameter Description
mInst The controller instance.
motorId An integer specifying the motor ID.
velocity. The address of a double to receive the motor velocity. 


Returns: Return Code Description
MERROR_NOERROR No Error.
MERROR_INVALID_INSTANCE The mInst parameter was out of range.
MERROR_MOTOR_NOT_FOUND The motor specified by motorId was not found.
MERROR_INVALID_ARG velocity is NULL or motorId is less than 0.

You could use either API in a PLC script to determine if the X and/or Y axis is moving. Devising some strategy for 'smoothing'
the turn-on/turn-off so that the pump is not turning on and off with every move will take some thinking about.

Craig

2212

General Mach Discussion / Re: Locked motors

« on: July 31, 2019, 07:31:09 PM »

Hi,
I'm guessing you are using inches as your native unit?

With 2000 step/inch and a max velocity of 120 inch/min will require Mach produce step pulses at:

(2000 x 120)/60 =4000 pulses/sec. That should be within Machs capabilities but are your motors capable?

May I suggest try a low max velocity to start with, say 40 inch/min.

The electrical smell does not sound good. Do you have a circuit diagram of how the motors are wired to the
drivers? I suspect you have a problem there.

Craig

2213

General Mach Discussion / Re: transposing when routing

« on: July 31, 2019, 10:45:09 AM »

Hi,
to reverse the direction of one axis, the X axis say......you can reverse the direction of the motor by swapping the
polarity of one winding of the motor OR you can do it in software.

Config/Ports and Pins/Motor Outputs.....reverse the direction signal.

Craig

2214

General Mach Discussion / Re: transposing when routing

« on: July 31, 2019, 03:52:03 AM »

Hi,
for example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKwlzIJG5lo

Craig

2215

General Mach Discussion / Re: transposing when routing

« on: July 30, 2019, 10:09:26 PM »

Hi,
I think you have the one axis directions back to front.

Have you followed the right hand rule when assigning axis directions? All CAD/CAM will asume
that axis orientation.

Craig

2216

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Has anyone made a Parker 6k8 Motion Controller work with Mach 3/4?

« on: July 30, 2019, 03:10:45 PM »

Hi,

Nice looking piece of hardware.

Maybe so but is now looking redundant.

With the addition of two software products, namely RTX64 and Kingstar Ethercat, Mach4 is an Ethercat master.......no
hardware required. Motion control is distributed among those Ethercat slave devices (servo/servo drives).

I'm looing forward to its official release....to see what the software package costs.

Craig

2217

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Has anyone made a Parker 6k8 Motion Controller work with Mach 3/4?

« on: July 30, 2019, 02:58:44 PM »

Hi,
a thread about this controller came up a few months ago.

https://www.machsupport.com/forum/index.php?topic=41233.0

Craig

2218

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach3 XML Wizard not reporting the correct information ?

« on: July 29, 2019, 11:22:17 PM »

Hi,

Looking that info for Mach4 won't do me a whole lot of good yet.......

You don't really need to, all that information is what gets loaded into the Mach Control and ESS
plugins. The configuration pages of the respective plugins is by far preferable when setting up.

Right now I am stuck on how Machmotion uses an E-stop.

Do yourself a favor and ditch the way they did it, by the time you work out how they did it you could easily
configure the whole machine in less time.

Hook your Estop switch direct to a input pin on your BoB. Configure that pin in the ESS plugin as an input
and then attach it to Machs EStop signal, again in the ESS Input Signal plugin tab.

Leave the control panel out of it entirely.....you can do everything you require WITHOUT using an external panel.
Once you have Mach and your machine set-up and running THEN come back and start to hook up the panel.

Just focus on the Estop, then the step/direction signals, then spindle output, then the Home switches, then the limits,
then the probe inputs. Then start to worry about a control panel and pendant.

Craig

2219

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach3 XML Wizard not reporting the correct information ?

« on: July 29, 2019, 09:33:35 PM »

Hi,
the wizard is looking for an .xml file which applies to Mach3 only.

Mach4 has an .ini file and is much more human readable.

Look under Mach4Hobby/Profiles/<Your Profile Name>/machine.ini. You can read it with a simple
text editor.

Craig

2220

General Mach Discussion / Re: Locked motors

« on: July 29, 2019, 08:44:11 PM »

Hi,
when you power up the motors should lock up. What that is telling you that the drivers are enabled an powered up.
The resistance you feel is called  holding torque.

If now the driver receive pulses from Mach the motors should move. If they squeal then the pulse stream was faster than the
drivers/motors can accelerate and you have created a stall, the squealing sounds bad but its not harmful to the motors for
short duration periods.

What have you tuned your motors to? ( That is steps/unit, max velocity and acceleration on the motor tuning pages).
If you have tuned too aggressively the motors will stall. The trick is to start with low velocity and acceleration and work
up until the onset of loss of steps or a stall. Then backoff by 25%.

Craig