Well, I have manged to make my Chinese wonder draw a circle (cheapo Biro tied to the Z Axis with elastic bands) Write my Wife's name and draw rectangles. No credit to my Chinglish User Manual, but anyway, I want to make sure the 4th Axis unit is working but I don't seem to be able to make it respond. I cannot find anything in the Mach3 Software Installation and Configuration Manual about it either.

My Chinese Wonder (a wonder that it works as the user guide is cr@p!) is a Tosin TS3040C

Can some kind person point me in the direction as to where I can find the settings/switches for the 4th Axis please.

I'm new too but there is A B and C axis in the configuration under ports and pins. I don't have a fourth axis but maybe that could work. You'll have to set the right inputs and outputs though according to how you have it wired. You also might need to make sure the fourth axis is calculated in your cam program too. I use solidcam.

I will assume you will be using the 4th axis for indexing.
- config>ports & pins-check enable for the A axis & assign pin out and states
- config>Motor tuning - provide tuning info just like any other axis ..but....
  the steps per should be the number of steps required for 1 revolution of the table
- config>general config - A axis is angular should be checked
                                 - Have a look in the manual about Rotational settings and select as desired
- config>Toolpath config - check 3d compass
                                   - Rotations - check X axis & a- rotations enabled
Then slike any other axis set any backlash if you use it, define what keys will be used for the X axis

That should get you going.
RICH

Wow Rich, thank you so much, I can now make the 4th Axis unit rotate Forward and Reverse. I'm over the moon !!! 

Not knowing which pins were serviced by the A Axis (4th Axis) convention proved a bit of a challenge, but after a sensible think and a cup of coffee I soon deduced which pins the little yellow people had wired the 4th Axis Unit to. 

For anyone else stuck with the same dilemma, the Step Pin is Pin #2 and the Dir Pin is #3 with the same step Port and Dir Port as the X,Y & Z  Pin #1

Thanks again for putting me in the right direction......

I'm back again (The Geordie with the dopy questions) I've been missing for nearly 2 years but I have finally managed to find some time to pick it back up again. The Chinese Wonder was mothballed while I have been away but I am now Hell bent on getting some work out of this expensive Ornament or Toy depending on your point of view.
I want to fit some end limits and shaft encoders to give it some positive feedback, but I have been struggling for the last two nights trying to get the Spindle Port to work.
The problem is that when I first start up the Spindle motor revs its doo-dahs  off, then when I finally manage to stop it – it won’t start up again.
I cannot be the only Muppet who has bought one of these….
Any clues chaps???

Do the limits, skip the encoders. They are not necessary in a stepper system that is tuned properly.

Are you using an S speed when firing up the spindle? or a simple M3 or M4?

Are you running a Parallel port or Smoothstepper (or similar)?

Oh.. That's a bit of good advice there as I am struggling a bit with the mechanics on the encoders – doable but struggling.

"Are you using an S speed when firing up the spindle? or a simple M3 or M4?"

M3 and M4 instructions, I’m not too bothered about controlling the Spindle Speed with the G Codes just simply turning it on and off at the start and end of the program

"Are you running a Parallel port or Smoothstepper (or similar)?"
 
I think it is a Parallel Port. I don’t know anything about SmoothStepping.. I’ll ask the Wife, she was a Dancer!  

Even if you got encoders up and working with your controller and Mach. There will be no corrective action. Just a fault/Estop if the distance commanded and the distance traveled are different. You could at that point, re reference the machine, advance the Gcode to the line where chaos occurred and hit run from here. Possibly.

Regarding the M commands. Try M3 S750. This would turn on the spindle in a clockwise direction (if all is set up correctly) at a a speed of 750rpm. I am not sure if Mach has a default with M3 so it might use the last commanded speed until it is reset with a new S command.

Parallel Port/DB25/Printer Port they are all the same thing. A Smoothstepper uses USB or Ethernet as the mode of communication with your machine. (I dont mean to imply 1 Smoothstepper will connect either way, There is an Ethernet model and A USB model).

Hi and thank you kindly for your reply. I have at last resolved my issues with the spindle motor. I'm still not too sure how I did it but it works as it used to. to cut the story short I used the older XML File that I created two years ago and 'BINGO' it Works.... 

I am taking your advice about the limit switches and ditching the encoder for the time being.

One of my near future modifications is to do away with the spindle motor which is dangling precariously 8ft in the air and fitting one of those half decent one’s from FeeBay that is going for about the 60 quid mark. The only problem there is that there appears to be only one available that will work on 220v AC the rest are 24v – 48v DC which will restrict my controllability from Mach3. 

Once again help and comments on this would be appreciated.

Spindles are available many different ways. A 220v model could be run from a VFD on 120v.