Thanks rob, I just need something that is reliable lol, I have a csmio yet I have little work with it so I am unsure of its abilities. I hooked up the csmio and it runs the drives great, but other than that...haven't done much...

Mikey, You need to call Brian @ artsoft and see if he can help you setup Mach4 for TURN on that machine. You already have all teh hardware in place just need the Mach4 setup.

THAT would be a great project for everyone to watch unfold.

(;-) TP

The ESS can thread very well, there are issues with step/dir spindle but they are minimal and nothing to do with your issue.
I think you said you are using Step/Dir for the spindle control?

Anyway if you are then I would think the ESS is not the problem and more likely the C23 board is not outputting a linear voltage in relation to the steps it is getting fed from the ESS.
Easy way to check if you have a scope, just compare the pulses from the ESS at several speeds and see if they correspond, for example see if the pulses at 1/2 speed are double that at 1/4 commanded speed.
One thing that I would change is lower the pulse width for the spindle, try 2.
Dont know what you have set for steps per unit and accel, maybe there is a magic number required for the C23 board, I know there was for Peter Homanns board.


CSMIO will thread exceptionally well as long as you do not mind having a groove at the end of the thread, this is due to a slow pull out while the CSMIO waits for Mach to tell it to move. That seems to be an issue with Mach3 when using full encoder feedback for threading, the Galil suffered from it as well although I understand Ken found a way round it with the Galil.

I have hoped for a long time that CS-Lab would produce a macro for lathe threading, similar to their rigid tapping macro. As of yet they have not done so, maybe one day they will as to me Mach4 is still years away from doing what Mach3 can do, I could be wrong on that however as I am no longer keeping an eye/interest on/in Mach4.

Hood

Thanks tp, would you happen to have a number for brian? I'd love to show everyone my work, I have been making lots of videos of my progress from the first thing I did to it.

Thanks hood, I would need 5o get the csmio ips then, I still have my threading module from the ipa, cuz the ipa has it built in..

I really would like to keep the ess and my setup. Perhaps going to mach4 would be ideal yet I just got the tool changer and all that to work, and from what I understand, programming is completely different in mach4 than mach3.

I posted a question on the warp 9 forum, same prob, but no responses yet.

What I will do is Uninstaller and delete everything, do a fresh install and copy over my macros and screen set with xml and see if that would help.

I will also check with my oscope but I am unsure as to where to test the pulses.

I could just make s chart from 100 rpm to 6000 rpm and make a curve graph to set my spindle speeds lol

So you are using Step/Dir for spindle control?

You would just probe the pin on the ESS that you have set to output the Step pulse.

Did you get any values from CNC4PC to input for Vel and Accel in the spindles motor tuning? As I said I used a board from Peter Homann (very briefly) on one project and when the correct numbers were used in Motor tuning the voltage was linear throughout the range. Whether the C23 is as good at keeping the voltage linear throughout the range I have no idea as I have never used any of their boards.

The IP-A still requires an Enc module for threading, technically it shouldn't as it has encoder feedback but CS-Lab have not allowed this to be used, I think for simplicity in having IP-S and IP-A plugins similar.

Hood

One other thing to check is the voltage output from the C23, it may indeed be linear and it may be your VFD that does not do the control well.
Hood

Thanks hood, I'll check the voltage across the range from the output of the c23 board, I did check briefly and it was 10v at 6000rpm and 5v at 3000rpm...

The values from the motor tuning are 1000 for steps and 60 for velocity. I say go 6000 rpm, and I get 10v out of the card, 3000 rpm I get 5v, etc. So I believe it's linear coming out of the card.

I'll check again, and you may be right about the vfd....it may not be handling the voltage correctly.


However does the ess not account for true speed and actual speed...and correct for it? I find this hard to believe that it is not available.

Also I am using step and dir for the output in the ess configuration option. Would you think that getting a pwm to 0-10v card would help? However if the ess is not correcting for true spindle speed than I doubt it...

If you are indeed getting a linear voltage out then it is neither the ESS or  the C23 but points towards your VFD. There may be settings in the VFD you could alter to make it more linear but likely it is just not that great.
No there is nothing in the ESS that will correct the RPM, it has no true feedback and even the PP doesn't do that well if at all.

Using PWM would make no difference, if you are saying the output voltage is linear then the VFD is the issue.

Best you can do is like you suggested earlier, make a note of RPM achieved from different commands and command the speed required for the speed desired.
You could probably, if you were so inclined, do it all within the SpindleSpeed.m1s macro, so that when you commanded 500 rpm it would actually output a command of say 600 to give you the 500.

Just for your information, the commanded spindle speed does not need to correspond to the true spindle speed when threading. As long as the feedback to Mach is accurate, ie the rpm the spindle is actually doing is also the RPM Mach shows, then your threading should be ok.



Hood

Mmm very good point... so that solves the that.

So what about the threading g76 command and how for some reason it does each pass at different rpm?

Uncheck spindle speed averaging and then run a thread and see if the RPM stays constant in the true DRO. If it does then I am not sure, if it fluctuates then it could be your VFD is doing some form of compensating, especially if the RPM slows initially then corrects as the pass progresses.
If that is happening then it is likely your problem that the VFD is trying to compensate, the ESS tries to compensate and both fight each other.

Hood