Messages

21

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach 3 outputs and e stop behavior

« on: February 10, 2018, 12:12:16 AM »

Hi Russ,

yes 2 outputs total per vise per se, since i ultimately desire to control each vise independently. if you look at the movements in the  video i posted earlier, i have 10 macros basically, 1 to open/close all vises, and 1 to open close each vise independently. in the video i make use of all macros to get that sequence. So that uses 4 outputs which is all i have actually per card free in my current config. the macros are all basically de/ActiveateSignal(xx), there is not much magic there and it works nicely other than the estop issue.

i also have 2 larger cncs than shown in video that can hold actually 8-10 of such vises so i try to keep the io required as low as possible for now which is why originally i had bought a modbus relay card to expand the output capability of my machines, and intended to not even use any of the outputs from the controller cards since there are only a few free on the cards i have.it;s possible eventually this card will work out but i spent about 3 days reading and trying things, and beyond the modbus setup window i could not get mach3 to communicate with the card, so i gave up.

re voltages of device:

the cnc card is a "leafboy77" card that has open drain outputs so you can use whatever voltage yo would like.  in all my cabinets i have  a 24v supply for most things and then either a 48 or 60v supply for the steppers. so i have 24 v relays and air solenoids etc. since the leafboy outputs are open drain it is no problem to interface them with 5V arduino but i did not think hard enough about then putting the arduino on the  relays i have wired to the air solenoids which require 24V.

re: electric vise

probably i should have said pneumatic vise, because it is actually just an air cylinder with a jaw on it. by electric i just meant it is controlled electronically, with an air solenoid, very similar to the collet example you gave in your own work i would guess. so the solenoid directs the air to either open or close the vise. i can take more pictures on monday if you are interested in how it is setup. but is basically mach3->leafboy77 card->a bunch of relays and water pumps etc at 24V and a bunch of steppers at 48-60 VDC + a vfd.

have a great weekend!

22

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach 3 outputs and e stop behavior

« on: February 09, 2018, 04:51:46 PM »

ya the latching relay idea would work, drawback is i don't have any on hand and also i believe it would require 2 io per relay instead of 1 which i don't have available on my control card if i want 4 vise. but it is probably the cleanest solution suggested in a way and i did not even think about that approach until Overloaded suggest the 2 relay solution, so thanks for that idea .

anyway i was hoping to get something working today with what i have in the shop so i made some arduino program that monitors the mach3 controller card outputs + the estop switch. basically it just passes the mach3 outputs but latches the previously scanned state if the estop is activated. and then after finishing  that i realized the arduino cannot drive the relays bc they are 24 volt and the arduino board on its own does not have open drain outputs of course, whereas the cnc control card does have 8 open drain outputs.

so in the end i just ordered a relay shield for the arduino and have to buy something anyways, but i t was quite cheap and should be here early next week. tgif i guess.

ill post results when it arrives.

thanks for your input everyone.

23

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach 3 outputs and e stop behavior

« on: February 08, 2018, 11:34:03 PM »

That is not a bad idea either.

It made me think also you could just get latching relays and since you just pulse them high/low to set the relay state... i will sleep on it and try something tomorrow.

Thank you for your thoughts!

24

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach 3 outputs and e stop behavior

« on: February 08, 2018, 09:15:38 PM »

Yup. I could not forsee a situation where M3 would be running, the collet (vise) is open, and I'd need to hit the estop.

right right ok and i wish this was the case for me too, since this is the easiest solution.

If you want the vise ENTIRELY independent of MACH, a simple ON/OFF switch would be the easiest, imo. Why do you need some sort of sw to control it anyway ?

Yes i agree that would be very easy but I don't want it independant of mach3 though, i want it independent of ESTOP signal.

The main goal is full automation. The vise is sort of the first step. I am cutting very often the same part, like 100's at a time so i am working on a feeder/robotic arm to feed pieces into the vise, but the vise first needs to work, so that is the step we are at now.

Originally i had bought a Modbus over etehrnet relay board which i think would avoid this since i doubt estop sends modbus coil register signals (i hope not anyways haha). But even though i could get it to work with the modbus test window in mach3, i could not get it to work with vb script or brains, even after reading some threads which sounded like people had similar issues, these solutions did not workout for me. So instead now i moved the goalpost a bit and  am going direct onto my controller card which unfortunately now seems to be affected by the estop signal, although from research this seems normal, not an issue with the card, it is what "should" happen etc...

anyways its a classic case of not doing enough research before buying some parts and just assuming it will work out, but ya im just trying to make something work with what i have on hand atm. it does almost work ahah.

here is a short video if you want to see a test of the vise opening/closing for fun.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xftNNhw9QnA

25

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach 3 outputs and e stop behavior

« on: February 08, 2018, 08:10:21 PM »

Hi,

Thanks for your reply. I think you might get what im saying and it does sound similar actually to what i want but in your application you  say,

"Only way to open it was if Mach was running and the output went HI."

So in your setup, if the collet is OPEN as caused by mach 3 running and dictating the output HI and you hit ESTOP, does the collet then close?


edit:
Also, since my op  i tried to make a macropump test.  The script just forces  the output to active state no matter what ( ActivateSignal( OUTPUTXX)  ). So this was to check which has precedence, estop (forcing it inactve) or charge pump (forcing it to active state). The end result is that they seem to compete actually, and the vise does a nice little polyrhythmic dance. As amusing as it was it is not what i hoped for.

I also found another thread i did not see originally where someone replies to  a similar question and says that estop overrides settings from brains and macropump, so this seems true at least for macropump i have not tried a brain yet. I think i will just setup an arduino or something to latch the mach3 control cards outputs when estop is active (hook up estop and output signals to the arduino as well, sit it inbeteween the mach outputs and the solenoids). I just hoped i could do it without anymore hardware but i don't see a way to get mach3 to latch so far.

26

General Mach Discussion / Mach 3 outputs and e stop behavior

« on: February 08, 2018, 05:45:18 PM »

Hello,

As has been noted in other threads i found from searching the forum, the output signals get set to their  inactive state when the mach 3 program is in estop.

My situation:
I am trying to use the outputs currently to control an electronic vise holding the work piece. The vise is activated by a relay driven by an output pin on my controller card. The pin is mapped to an output signal in the mach3 ports and pins setup.

My issue:
So the issue is that if the vise is closed and you e stop, it will open, which i don't want. What i want is just that the state of the output is unchanged at an estop. ie if it is inactive and you estop, it remains inactive. if it is active and you estop, it remains active. hence this problem is not solved by simply changing the output from active high to active low etc.

So i thought maybe you could use a brain or macropump to add logic to keep the output steady during estop but does the estop state override brains?or is there some other way to achieve this perhaps?

Basically i want the output signal to latch at an estop, not change to its inactive state.

Thank you for your time.  

27

VB and the development of wizards / Re: help withusing vbscript to "feedhold" gcode execution

« on: October 20, 2016, 10:20:40 AM »

ya it's all good, thank you for that explanation,  i think my post came off as complain-y, everything is good. at first i was not sure mach3 could even do a pause as i wanted, so i guess that was really part of my original question as well.

I also realized  yesterday a less elegant solution. I could have just  disabled the spindle on/off relays setting and simply toggled the spindle on or off  on a gpio on the controller card, one that isnt assigned to the "spindle relay" in mach 3, likely this would not get changed in a stop command. Then toggle it in a  macro instead of using m3/m5. this is less desirable cause i have to change the setup and then my old gcodes need to be modified etc and as you say with STOP you may lose position etc etc.

"Optional" stop as you suggested does not seem to stop the spindle. Again not intuitive to me but i will take it, since its exactly what i want

Thanks again for your input.

28

VB and the development of wizards / Re: help withusing vbscript to "feedhold" gcode execution

« on: October 19, 2016, 01:31:20 PM »

yes, and excuse my ignorance as i ma not a mach3 expert,  but it is not immediately clear to me why a pause in a sequence of moves would not be considered movement. probably i don't understand the logic behind what feed hold is really used for in practice since im not much of a machinist, but if i had a piece of gcode that had a g4 in a complicated sequence i wanted to pause, i might expect that feedhold will pause the gcode execution. or at least pause at the subsequent movement after the g4. obviously it does not as found empirically.

I agree with you and what you say but Mach3 operates the way it does and that is the way we must learn to use it.

Tweakie.

ya that is my experience with it so far, it does work, but you just have to know all it's peculiarities.  lots of good info in the forum though at least. i pretty much figured out everything else i needed else from reading through it.

29

VB and the development of wizards / Re: help withusing vbscript to "feedhold" gcode execution

« on: October 19, 2016, 12:03:25 PM »

ftr it does not look like you can feed hold a g4 command.

By definition, feedhold only works when there's movement TO feedhold.

yes, and excuse my ignorance as i ma not a mach3 expert,  but it is not immediately clear to me why a pause in a sequence of moves would not be considered movement. probably i don't understand the logic behind what feed hold is really used for in practice since im not much of a machinist, but if i had a piece of gcode that had a g4 in a complicated sequence i wanted to pause, i might expect that feedhold will pause the gcode execution. or at least pause at the subsequent movement after the g4. obviously it does not as found empirically.

anyway thank you again for your help, it is greatly  appreciated and saved me a lot  of time.

s

30

VB and the development of wizards / Re: help withusing vbscript to "feedhold" gcode execution

« on: October 18, 2016, 11:33:14 PM »

By definition, feedhold only works when there's movement TO feedhold.

Whilst an M code is running, there IS no movement.

Try an M1 instead and see if that does what you want. (remember to enable it).

looks like this is the ticket. thank you for your help.

ftr it does not look like you can feed hold a g4 command.