Saw a new plugin on the downloads page last night and gave it a go this morning. Tried the threading ( 2mm pitch thread on a 16mm dia piece of mild stee ) and the pullout was instant and it looked every bit as good as any thread I have done on the big lathe, so very happy with it. For some reason the spindle override is not working so I was not able to vary the speed during the thread to see how it performed.
Overall I am delighted with the CSMIO so far, I have found a few small issues but I am sure they will be addressed soon.
One thing I have found is when going to change any config settings in Mach, make sure Mach is in Reset or you will get things hanging. No big deal as I am in the habit of doing that now but took a few mins to work out why it was hanging sometimes and not others.
Another thing I have found is if you have limits and home switches sharing on multiple axis it will trigger an E-Stop when the axes home. Having Homes shared between multiple axes also has an issue where as soon as the first axis hits the switch it will not back off but instead the second axis starts homing.
If sharing a home and limits but keeping each axis on its own input then things seem fine, you have to do as the manual states however, disable the Home Switch Safety option in General config.
As the CSMIO has plenty inputs then sharing would not normally be done anyway and in fact it would be better to have separate home switches as that way you can take advantage of the Index homing capability.
Another thing that I found was if you hit a limit switch then you can reset but cant back off if you have the MPG module. With the module connected I could not select keyboard jogging to try it as the MPG module kept changing Mach back to MPG mode. I found however that if you have a switch in line with the power to the axis select then you can select between MPG and Jog. Once in Jog mode you could then back off the limit no problem.
The manual shows a momentary switch in line with the power to the axes select switch but it doesnt really say why you need it and only says its optional. I never use keyboard jogging so instead of having a switch there I think I will have a switch that I will use as a limit override switch, if a limit is hit and I wish to back off I can press and hold that switch and it will allow me to jog off via the MPG.
Hood