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Using Enable1 throu Enable6
« on: August 26, 2009, 11:45:29 PM »
Does anyone know how Enable1 through Enable6 operate (these are output configured on the Ports and Pins configuration screen)? I thought I had read somewhere that they can be used to reduce the current surge when you first power on the controller. I thought they sequentially enable the drives upon power-up thus they would not have all motors surge at one time on power-up.

I am not sure I am correct about that. If I set them to active high, the output does not toggle when I toggle the RESET button. However, if I set the output to active low then it does toggle when I toggle the RESET button. Unfortunately, that is reverse logic for the G203V Disable input.

Offline Hood

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Re: Using Enable1 throu Enable6
« Reply #1 on: August 27, 2009, 03:33:13 AM »
 I dont think they will come on in a sequential manner but then again I have all my drives enabled from a single enable so I wouldnt see that anyway.

Hood
Re: Using Enable1 throu Enable6
« Reply #2 on: August 27, 2009, 09:45:40 AM »
I was reading this article written by Art: http://www.machsupport.com/forum/index.php?topic=12457.new;topicseen#new

In this articel it says:
"In the interests of safety, Mach3 always starts in EStop mode with the flashing
Estop button. There are 6 enable outputs that are tied to this operation. They are
programmed to turn on , one by one with a couple hundred ms of time between each
one. This is to stop excessive current being drawn from your power supplies as all the
drivers get enabled at once. Many don’t use that feature but it is there for that purpose.
Having the drive power up from the enable lines can be problematic for some as the
power is removed from them whenever an Estop occurs, but in terms of safety it is a
good idea to have a main relay kill all motor mower anyway when an Estop occurs.
So enabling each drive with an Enable signal is a good way to stop the high current at
startup of the system. "

That sounds great except that when I have the Enable signal set to active high it does not seem to toggle when I go in and out of Estop. Maybe this is a synchronization problem wit the Smoothstepper. The Enable signal does toggle if I have it set to active low, but that is the wrong logic for the G203V. The reason I am interested in this is becasue I had the rectifier bridge diode in my power supply fail at power up a while back. Antek sent me a replacement and said that they had received a bad lot of rectifiers that sometimes failed during the startup surge. I thought this would be a good way of protecting from that.

Offline Hood

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Re: Using Enable1 throu Enable6
« Reply #3 on: August 27, 2009, 10:27:59 AM »
Well there you go, you have the answer regarding the timing ;)
As for active Hi/Lo then afraid I dont know with regards the SmoothStepper as although I use it my enable is actually via the PLC.

Hood

Offline poppabear

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Re: Using Enable1 throu Enable6
« Reply #4 on: August 27, 2009, 10:54:05 AM »
Do this, if you need to work around that to reverse the logic,  Put your Enable(s) as inputs in a Brain, then go to a "Invert" then out to one of the Extra "Outputs 1-20", and in ports and pins change your Port/pin from the enable to the output that you mapped that enable to.
NOTE: you must Leave the Enable as "Active (using it)". Same for the Output your using make sure you turn it ON.

so one line of brain code for Enable1 to your X axis drive lets say would now look like this:

Enable1 -> Invert -> Output10  

(note again you would map your PP of Enable(s) to 0/0, and the OutputX would now have what the enable that feeds it used to have in P/P.

scott
fun times
Re: Using Enable1 throu Enable6
« Reply #5 on: August 27, 2009, 11:06:55 AM »
Using a brain to invert is a great idea. Not sure what the root cause of the problem is, but that sure would be a workaround. Thanks.