Finally got the spindle working, turns out the damn inverter was faulty....go figure!

Ok so here is the long awaited g-code file and xml files, including a pic of our smooth stepper config file.

I installed smooth stepper today but haven't really had time to set it up properly. Not really sure what I did wrong as everything is fine except the DRO's that's being displayed while cutting are totally wrong.

Sadly as soon as I switch on the spindle smooth stepper clicks off..... just when I got the damn spindle to work in mach3 haha.

Anyways, one problem at a time I guess.

All we basically want to know is how fast does the attached g-code cut on your setup,using the default feed of the g-code, so that we can compare it against ours.

If possible, run it with normal Mach3 and also with Smooth Stepper.

Thanks again for all the help

Ok ran with both your xmls, PP was 1min 23 seconds SS was 1min 25 seconds. SS xml has lower accels so that will likely be the difference.
With your PP xml you have the kernel set to 100KHz when in reality your motor tuning only requires 10KHz approx, I would definitely reduce the kernel to 25KHz.

The feedrate in the code jumps around quite a bit so hard to say how near to the commanded Mach is but its close.

Hood

Thanks for the efforts Hood.

Our time is around 1min27 seconds without SS, not sure if the time we getting with SS is right since it's 56seconds, but that's with the DRO's being all over the place. Plus I noticed on the preview screen that usually it will show you how it's engraving, with SS is actually moves off the screen, so you can't see.

Another thing is I closed Mach3, reopened and selected my normal mach3 profile (SS was still plugged in) As soon as I initialize the drives the spindle switches on.

If I open Mach3 with the SS profile and hit F5, SS dies.

Not sure if that helps any.

I attached another gcode file, only difference is the plunge and feed rate is the same so that one can monitor the actual feed rate better.

I'll change our Kernel to 25 tonight and see what happens, thanks

Looks to be working fine here, yes the feedrate jumps around but that is to be expected with the nature of the code, lots of short line moves.
So what is the difference in time between the Hass and your router? What are the motor settings of your Hass?
Sounds like your spindles VFD is throwing out lots of noise which is killing the SS, few things you can try, one is move wiring of VFD away from signalling wires if possible, another is get a filter for your VFD.

Hood

That's just the thing, running the file on HAAS gives 1min23 seconds, which is pretty close to our current times.

The problem is those feeds are extremely slow and need to be pushed up by 4 times as the HAAS can run at that speed without any problems.

When upping the feed times 4 on the HAAS it finishes in 36seconds, but on our machine the time remains pretty much the same as it's not capable of performing the movements fast enough....... or as I suspect, some or other setting(s) is holding it back.

Have you tried running the g-code using your own xml, would love to know it it makes any difference.

I'll contact our manufacturer and see if they can install a filter as moving the wires wouldn't be an option as everything is built into their pre-designed cabinet.

I would love to know the motor settings of the HAAS, but they pretty secretive about their whole setup and trying to find it in the system itself it impossible as it's got screens and screens of config/parameter pages.

Yes it is settings but not a Mach issue, it is simply your hardware that is the issue. For example I have just bumped the rapids in your xml to 10m/min and accel to 5m/s/s and ran the code at 300% FRO and it runs at 34:51 seconds and that includes the 5 seconds dwell you have set.

Even using the motor tuning settings in your xml and bumping the FRO to 300% the time will drop to around 44 seconds, so its not Mach.

Could your router handle the acceleration that the Hass is likely to have? possibly not as the Hass will likely be much more rigid.

If you need Hass speeds then you either need to get a Hass or get a machine with similar hardware capable of similar rapids and accelerations and of similar rigidity.

My mill is an old 1984 knee mill with box ways and has similar kinds of accelerations as your router so the times will be around the same as you get with your router.

Hood

That's a very good question Hood, not really sure what sort of acceleration our machine can handle.

Can you please tell me what the accel/decel value should be to equal 5m/s/s as I have no idea how to calculate or read it on the mach motor tuning screen.

I think the acell/decel is currently on 1000 if I'm not mistaken, which equals around 0.3 seconds?

I know the servo's default accel/decel is 50ms, but since I can't use Position/Speed Mode those values are ignored.

We also dropped the max rapid to 4000m/min as I was busy testing Tempest Planner and it always runs rapid movements at max speed,which is a bit scary at 15000m/min without the feedhold working under Tempest.

The machines default rapid setting is 15000m/min, but can be bumped up to 20 000m/min according to the manufacturer.

Does the velocity and accel/decel values under motor tuning work in unison? As I'm assuming one can drop the rapid value without affecting the accell/decel rate.

5m/s/s is simply 5000mm/s/s
Velocity in motor tuning is your rapid speed and will affect code with lots of rapid moves but the biggest difference will be seen with increases in acceleration. Velocity and Acceleration are not linked as such., yes you may be able to get higher accel with a lower Velocity but that is nothing to do with Mach but more to do with your hardware.
Hood

Awesome stuff, thanks for explaining that Hood.

Will push the accel/decel up until the machine starts sounding funny or until we start losing detail on the engraving side.

Just a quick update on the HAAS accel/decel values :

1G acceleration = 32 ft/sec2 (9.8 m/sec2)

That's REALLY fast, doubt our machine would be able to do those numbers as we currently on 0.12G acceleration, but will see how far we can push it.