Hey Hood,
Got a question for you. As you are aware, I am the guy that built the CnC Quilter. Well, I am trying to attach a thread break detector to the machine that will turn off the action of the machine when the thread breaks. The detector is in essence a solid state relay that is set as NC, that has a 15 to 30 volt output when the thread breaks. due to the voltage involved, what in your mind would be the best way to connect this? I was thinking that on the output side of the SSR, connect the ground to the ground of the Rockcliff board, then to pin 15 of the board, then set the output of output15 of Mach3 to pin15. This I don't have a problem with. What I am concerned with is the voltage being output. Will the output voltage be a problem, or should I drop it down to 5 volts with a resistor? Also, another issue is this: I am trying to use Mach3 to measure the length of the quilt on the table. What I find is that the output of the DROs is not compatible with inch measurements. I view the problems as one of scale. Each pattern that I put on the system appears to have a different scale that is necessary to make the output of proper size. The system operates with a belt drive to pull the carriage with the sewing machine along the length of the table (x-axis), which I would like to be able to use to measure the length of each quilt, from the home position to the right edge of the quilt or at least to the stopping point of the pattern, to get an idea of the number of repeats that would be necessary to sew in order to fill each row without a pattern being broken in half. Any ideas would be appreciated.
Larry