Messages

331

General Mach Discussion / spindle encoder options?

« on: December 13, 2007, 10:15:08 AM »

I am mostly done with my retrofit of a 13x40 import lathe and have everything up and working other than the spindle encoder. I am wondering if someone could help with a basic circut to use the infared emitter and detector part# 276-142 from radio shack . They are relativley cheap and avail just about everywhere

332

General Mach Discussion / Re: controlling VFD with mach

« on: December 13, 2007, 12:21:32 AM »

thank you

333

General Mach Discussion / Re: controlling VFD with mach

« on: December 12, 2007, 09:36:40 AM »

Well I wired my vfd forward and reverse pins to the same relay , one on NO the other on NC . My Vfd doesnt have a seperate input to turn the spindle motor on so when its plugged in in the configuration above it starts in the direction thats attached to the nc pin on the relay. I am using this same VFD on my deskcnc setup and I have two relays, one that pulls the fwd to grnd for fwd and the other that pulls the rev term to ground for reverse. When either of these term(fwd or reverse) is pulled to the common pin that starts the rotation in that direction. Its been running fine for a couple of years and dont mind wiring this one the same , I have two relays on board that are not being used, one at pin 1 , the other at pin 14.

Currently I have the common term in the VFD wired to the relay at pin 14 and the fwd term of the vfd wired to NO side the same relay. The rev pin and common are tied to the relay at pin 1
in the vb editor I opened the m3 file and changed the "DoSpin()" command with "ActivateSignal(OutPut14) "
I changed the m4 file to read "ActivateSignal(OutPut1) "
I changed the m5 file to read  "DeActivateSignal(OutPut14)" "DeActivateSignal(OutPut1)"


I can now click the spindle button on the screen and it turns the spindle on and off  , when I type m3 s3000 in the MDI line with the spindle motor off nothing is happening , same with m4 , m5 will not turn the spindle off when its running .
I am sure I am overlooking something simple, thanks for any help

334

General Mach Discussion / Re: controlling VFD with mach

« on: December 08, 2007, 02:02:11 PM »

I attached my rev term in the vfd to the NC term on the and have attached the forward to the NO term on the relay. This seems it will normaly cause my spindle to turn counterclockwise when the relay is not energised and will cause the motor to run clockwise when relay is energized.

When I open the m3 macro with VB editor  it reads "   DoSpinCW()  "   
The m4 macro reads  " DoSpinCCW() "
My relay is on pin 16
If I understand correctly I need to add  "ActivateSignal(OutPut16)"  to my m3 macro to send the relay a signal thru pin 16 , energizing the relay and allowing the spindle motor turn in a clockwise direction  and add "DeActivateSignal(OutPut*)" to my m4 macro .

Do I add these commands in place of the "DoSpin" or just place them in addition to

335

General Mach Discussion / Re: controlling VFD with mach

« on: December 08, 2007, 01:44:01 PM »

thank you 
moved rev to the NO side of the same relay

336

General Mach Discussion / controlling VFD with mach

« on: December 08, 2007, 11:26:17 AM »

Hi I am doing a retrofit of an older enco 13x40 lathe . I am using the c11 board from cnc4pc and would like to control a teco fm100 vfd . I understand attachment of the analog out put to the terminals in the vfd . In the vfd there is a common terminal and a forward and reverse terminal . Grounding either the FWD or REV term to the comm detirmines the direction the of rotation for the spindle motor.

 On the cnc4pc board there are a pair of relays with both NO and NC contacts. One relay is controlled by pin 1 on input and the other is controlled by pin 16. I have the comm wired to both relays and the the FWD on the NO of one relay and the REV on the NO of the

How do I go about configuring mach3 to send a signal to pin 1 when an M03 command is given and pin 16 when M04
apologies for the newb question , just trying to finish up my instal and am new to mach

337

General Mach Discussion / Re: spindle encoder and breakout board question, qaud encoder?

« on: November 18, 2007, 01:34:15 PM »

my spindle motor is a conventional 3 phase AC  motor with VFD  . I was hoping for qaud encoder input so I could try mach on a large milling center but the cat40 spindle requires precise indexing for tool changes because of the drive key, rigid tapping was hopefuly going to be a plus .

Is there any plan/hope of a qaudreture encoder interface in the future?

338

General Mach Discussion / spindle encoder and breakout board question, qaud encoder?

« on: November 17, 2007, 11:07:24 AM »

Does mach support a qaud encoder on the spindle or just the single pulse/tach type ? I would like to experiment rigid tapping on the mill so I think the qaud encoder will be required,
I am also converting my 14x40 lathe to cnc and am curious about reccomended breakout boards,  I have been happily using deskcnc on my other cnc machines but want to give mach a try on the new lathe. Any suggestions or advice on breakout boards welcome , I have an ncpod board but I am guessing all the bugs to interface with mach fully are not completley ironed out . I am considering the board form cnc4pc , how does the encoder for the spindle interface ?

Also curios how to index a cat40 spindle correctly with mach for tool changes so that the drive key is in the proper place

Thanks in advance for any advice