Messages

111

General Mach Discussion / Re: AC Servo Spindle and ESS

« on: April 14, 2015, 10:09:39 AM »

Jeff, it is the possibility of mechanical damage to the machine by hitting a wrong button in Mach which frightens me. I want my machine to be fool proof. Also, I still keep getting the "SmoothStepper ran out of data" message every now and then, and I am not sure about this, but I think it would also cause that sudden stop. Again, not sure about this one as I've just fitted the large chuck and with small one it really never made a difference how it stopped so don't recall.

Russ, it is a 2kW Delta servo. Don't have an external resistor. It has a 6:1 reduction transmission to the spindle, so the motor doesn't experience the full inertia of the load. Still easily tears an HTD-5M 15mm wide belt not even tripping an error.

Dan

112

General Mach Discussion / Re: AC Servo Spindle and ESS

« on: April 14, 2015, 06:53:13 AM »

Thanks Hood.

Dan

113

General Mach Discussion / Re: AC Servo Spindle and ESS

« on: April 14, 2015, 04:31:01 AM »

Oh... thought that threading issue with the CSMIO had been resolved.

Mentioned it to Greg a few times in the past, but as I recall he didn't know how it was different from the SS. He said he was pursuing the original Mach's behaviour and thought this was the normal behaviour it. On the small lathe I too have the habit of turning the spindle off prior to Stop, but sometimes I forget which is not a big deal - it's not nice as you say. However, with this machine, it is much more than being merely not nice with a chuck weighing more that 70kg.

As a workaround I could probably send a signal from Mach upon a Stop (or Reset) hit, to the Servo Emergency Stop input. Somehow, hoped you might had a more elegant solution for this after years of use

Anyway, will talk to Greg again, and unless he can fix it real soon, will have to switch to CSMIO.

Have you switched to Mach4 on any of your machines, by the way?

Thanks,
Dan

114

General Mach Discussion / AC Servo Spindle and ESS

« on: April 14, 2015, 03:10:44 AM »

Hi,

Have fitted an AC servo to a large spindle (380mm chuck). It uses an ESS as a controller. Trouble is, when spindle runs, hitting the Stop in Mach causes an abrupt stop of the pulse train to the servo drive and it instantaneously stops. With a chuck that big, it means tearing the belt and causing other damage. With the USB SS it has never been an issue (have it on two machines) and hitting Stop still smoothly decelerates to a stop.

Hood, I am sure you encountered this on your Computurn with the large chuck prior to switching to CSMIO. How did you solve this?

Thanks,
Dan

115

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach 4 Bug Reports

« on: April 06, 2015, 06:01:27 AM »

Is there a fully functional plugin yet? The website still has the initial Beta plugin, several months old, which doesn't include many features.

Dan

116

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 Screw Error Mapping

« on: March 12, 2015, 05:06:05 AM »

Thanks Steve.

Dan

117

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 Screw Error Mapping

« on: March 11, 2015, 03:26:14 PM »

So no kinematics? Is it possible? I know I can do it with a PLC - the pulse train from Mach would go through a PLC which would have the mapping data and add or subtract a few steps to account for the error. But having this in Mach would greatly simplify things.

Dan

118

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 Screw Error Mapping

« on: March 11, 2015, 02:02:54 AM »

Thanks for the information Steve. Waiting forward to playing with it.

While at it, just would like to make sure we are talking about the same thing. I have a 4.5m long cylindrical grinder. It is real hard to get the 4m long linear guides absolutely straight by mechanical means. I have done so to about 0.05mm. So when grinding a 4m long shaft the fluctuations in diameter are up to 0.1mm. I would like to be able to map the Z axis so that for each Z value, the X moves to correct the straightness error. Is this the feature you're working on now? Asked this on the Yahoo group and had Brian answer this was it, but now I am afraid we didn't understood each other.

Dan

119

Mach4 General Discussion / Mach4 Screw Error Mapping

« on: March 07, 2015, 04:04:51 AM »

In the announcements it says that version 2251 has added screw error mapping ( see here ).

But I can't see this... where do I find it? Any info and instructions available?

Dan

120

Show"N"Tell ( What you have made with your CNC machine.) / Re: I'm in Hog Heaven

« on: January 10, 2015, 02:25:54 AM »

Well done!

Have to start learning LUA. Need Mach4 functionality on a couple machines. Bought licence copies in pre-release sale, but waiting for the ESS plugin to be fully functional.

Dan