Since I last used my mill something has changed and speed control of the spindle speed has been lost.
I am using mach3 v2.064, a digispeed XL control board with spindle speed fed back using a pulse index board from CNC4PC.
 If I give M3   and a S~ codees the spindle surgeees into life then settles back to minimum speed.
This occurrs whatever speed I ask for eg S2000.
I have checked through all the config settings and tried some alterations but no success.
With the digispeed on manual I can turn the speed right up, no problem.
If  I use the automatic speed calibration it winds the speed way up in descrete steps.
I sometimes get the message 'PWM bumped to minimum' on the status line which seems tto cover the symptoms.

I am not sure whether or not I have upgraded to 2.064 since my last use of the mill which could mean a wrong setting but I have gone through the digispeed set-up more than once and cannot see a fault.
I am assuming it is not an electronic fault.

Can anyone suggest my next move; I am getting very frustrated.
I seem to remember having this problem before but cannot remember how I solved it.

Help
Malcolm Smith

Malcolm,
Please post you XML and we will have a look at it
I think you need to turn off the pid loop for the spindle
Thanks
Brian

Brian, thanks for your reply.
I switched off PID and spindle control was back to normal.

Attaching .XML file for your perusal

Keep up the good work

Malcolm Smith

To tmsmith and Brian...  I'm new here and hope this goes to the right place.

I'm having the same problem with my spindle.  I can't change the pwm speed output with the S input.  It was working for a while and then it quit accepting S commands.  I checked the configurations and I don't have the PID enabled.  The index input is working ok indicating the correct speed.  Watching the pwm output on a scope, it never changes.

On an M3 command (with S at any value) the spindle surges on then settles back to about 500rpm.  I also verified that I'm not in CSS mode.
Thanks,
 Tom Carlson

Hmm... This is a bit odd...  I would post your XML and we can have a look at your settings.
If you would like you can also send me the XML off list.
Thanks
Brian

Hi tom_emag,
If your system worked then stopped working something must have changed.
I found it important to record changes made; probably my memory at fault, so I could return to previous conditions.
Of course a connection might have broken.
It will be interesting to see what Brian has to say.
 
tmsmith

First, thanks for the quick reply.  Before I went further I double checked everything again and found that my index pulse was not getting through for spindle rpm.  I did run the spindle auto calibrate in that condition and that may have been the problem.  After fixing the index problem and got rpm info back I re-ran the auto calibrate and it went ok.  I now have normal speed control back.  I can't be positive these are related but it did seem to correct the problem.

I'm now trying to get my tool changer going and could use some advice on that.  It's a simple 6 position tool changer that provides a pulse per tool position and an additional index at tool 1 position.  It only requires one output to start it moving, wait for the correct number of pulses and drop the output to index that tool.    Question is: how do I control the output lines?  Is that done by assigning M-codes or is there a script language of some sort.  I see there are some tool changer programs posted but no info on how to call these from Mach.

Thanks again for the help.
  Tom Carlson

Hello,
Please have a look at the toolchanger video on the web.. that should give you a great place to start!
Thanks
Brian

Thanks, I looked at the toolchanger video and it was helpful.  However, I could not find the M6START.MLS they referenced as a starting point.  Can you tell me where it is or if there are any tutorials on how to call/ format a macro?   (I'm sure this is all obvious, just need a starting point)

Questions:
> how do you call a routine like an M command, for example  "M6 T0101"?
> where are the macros or command scripts located?   How do I access them to modify or add commands?  Are there individual files for each command?
> is there a listing of the variable references?  In reading some of the posted scripts I see the DROs for example are accessed by a variable number.
> is there a programming document that has all this in one place?

  Tom