Had a serious probelm crop up today on my lathe..

I was using my Homann pendant with the ModIO interface to indicate in X on my lathe. Clicking along at .001 per click with my gage pin in hand, when suddenly the X axis takes off, smashing into the part and causing some damage. It then reversed direction and began a 3-4 inch oscillation in X at G00 speed. I hit e-stop and motion ceased, released the e-stop and it picked up right where it left off. Hit e-stop again, shut down Mach3, restarted Mach3, and it started oscillating again as soon as the splash screen closed. I then restarted Mach with a profile that does not have the pendant configured. Operation was normal including jogging with the keyboard. I ran the lathe for the rest of the day with keyboard jogging with no problems.

Any one have any idea what's going on? For reference I have G320s and Kelling servo motors.

Thanks for any and all help.

Chuck

Hi Chuck,

I'm sorry to hear of you problems. Has this just started to happen? And have you upgraded Mach3 recently?


Can you do this check. Select the settings page. There is a display of the MPG count. Can you record what is happening to it when the axis is running amuck.

heers,



Peter.

Hi Peter,

It ran fine for about an hour, then started the oscillations. I upgraded to the latest Mach about 4 weeks ago. Once I get back to work tommorrow. I'll try it, and report back

Chuck

Hi Chuck,


Please do. It is very unlikely that the Pendant itself is doing this. It is most likely to be in Mach, the plugin or the interaction between the plugin in and Mach3.

You can test the Pendant hardware by using the mbReader program that can be  download from the ModIO Yahoo group file area. It displays all the data comming from the pendant and will shouw any erroneous data.

Just download all the files in the directory, install mbReader and load the MP-01.mbs file.


Cheers,

Peter.

Peter here's an update,

Looking at the MPG data DRO it's fipping between 2 numbers. What are the correct jumper settings on the MP board? The picture in the manual does not match the version board I have (2.0).

mbReader is tallying continuous TOErr.

Chuck

Hi Chuck,

In the jumper block, the postion of the 4 rinht hand jumpers is identical. The difference is in the TXE and RXE jumpers. On the V1 board that you have each of those jumpers is oriented horizontally and is a 3 pin jumper.

On your board you place the jumper in the 2-3 position to enable the respective RS485 driver. You place it in the 1-2 position (toward the centre of the board) to disable it.

In version 2 those 2 jumpers are 2 pin and vertically oriented, and need to be inserted to   disable the driver.

When delivered, your board would have had these 2 jumpers in the enable position. You don't need to change them unless you want to use the pendant in an existing 485 netword and don't want to use the Rs232 connector on the board.


That said, I don't think the jumpers won't be the cause of your problem.

I presume that it has been working up to now? If, so have you canged the Mach3 version?

Also, can you download and install the latest version of the plugin 09A


To determine if it is an issue with Mach3, can you go to the ModIO Yahoo group and in the files area there is a directory labelled mbReader.
 It contains a test program that will verify what data the pendant is sending. Download all the files in the directory , install the program, run it and load the MP-01.mbs file.

The registers I'm interested in are the MPG Count value (Is it stable) and ist it incrementing/decrementing correctly.

 Also can you tell me what the tick counter is doing. Is it counting up and rolling over or sitting around a particular value.


I'm off to get some sleep now. I'll check your findings in the morning.


Cheers,


Peter.

Hi Chuck,

Sorry, I missed the bit about mbReader. You are getting timeout errors.  In mbReader is the slave address set to 27? And what comms settings do you have, 57600 or 115200?

Cheers,


Peter.

Hi Peter,

When I can in this morning the oscillations were still occuring as I left the power on overnight. This morning I cycled the power to the ModIO board and the oscialltion stopped. I used the lathe for about 3 hours today with the pendant with no problems. IThis afternoon, I was able to get mbReader working, the mpg counter is stable, counts up and down based on direction. The timer is rolling over at about 64000. Everything else seems normal. I guess all I can do is wait for the problem to crop up again then run mbReader to see what's going on.

Chuck

Hi Peter,

When I can in this morning the oscillations were still occuring as I left the power on overnight. This morning I cycled the power to the ModIO board and the oscialltion stopped. I used the lathe for about 3 hours today with the pendant with no problems. IThis afternoon, I was able to get mbReader working, the mpg counter is stable, counts up and down based on direction. The timer is rolling over at about 64000. Everything else seems normal. I guess all I can do is wait for the problem to crop up again then run mbReader to see what's going on.

Chuck

Hi Chuck,

I'm not sure what could cause that. It may be that there is a problem with the MPG wheel that is causing the oscillations.

THe fact that thetimer Tick counts up and rolls over tells me that you have the latest sofware in the pendant. If it occurs again see if you can capture it on mbReader.

Cheers,


Peter.

Hi Peter,

Thanks for your help I'll let you know if it crops up again.

I have a thought for your Pendant/ModIO system.. I own a Milltronics 4 axis mill and one of the best features on it is HandWheel Mode (HDW). Just before hitting cycle button, you can select HDW and the program only moves while the handwheel is being turned. Turn it faster and it will move upto the programed feedrate, turn it slower, and it can creep along. Stop turing and the program stops moving the machine. I use it all the time for test running programs. It's better than single stepping since the program can be held during the middle of a move.

You certainly have the hardware in place, just would seem to be some (or a lot of) programming....Thoughts?

Chuck