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Diagnostics Page Tutorial?
« on: December 28, 2015, 04:12:56 PM »
Hello, All,

I am new to Mach3 and am trying to diagnose some issues with Mach3 and my milling machine. I cannot find a tutorial or guide that will explain what each of the lights/indicators on the diagnostics page mean. Does anyone have a link that they can post that would provide me some help to understand how to read the diagnostics page?

Thanks,
Nikki
Re: Diagnostics Page Tutorial?
« Reply #1 on: December 30, 2015, 04:10:21 PM »
Not sure if a document exists or not.    I am guessing you are asking about the port pins, input & output signal indicators?


The "Port 1 Pins Current State" is literally the state of the parallel port pins.  These are the pins assigned in the config "ports and pins" section.

The "Input signals Current State" are the state of various Mach inputs.  If you are using the parallel port, this should match up with the satte of the parallel port pins  as assigned in the config "ports and pins" section.

The "output Signals Current State" are as the inputs, but for the Mach outputs.


Does any of this help?  Do you have a specific problem to use as an example?

Offline Tweakie.CNC

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Re: Diagnostics Page Tutorial?
« Reply #2 on: December 31, 2015, 02:18:27 AM »
Hi Nikki,

To my knowledge the ‘Input Signals current State’ and ‘Output Signals current State’ have always worked correctly but (dependant on which version of Mach3 you are running) the ‘Port 1 Pins current State’ do not always work.

Tweakie.
PEACE
Re: Diagnostics Page Tutorial?
« Reply #3 on: January 08, 2016, 03:21:17 PM »
Sixmile: Thank you for this information. It was what I was looking for.

I have been having issues with my x-axis not homing correctly. I am using two different types of switches on my machine, both DC two wire prox switches. The y and z axes use the OMRON E2E-X2D1-N switch while the X-axis uses an OMRON E2E2-X2D1 switch. The reason for the different switches is because of a length requirement on my machine.

My issue was that the light in the Input Signals current State section of the Diagnostics page had the M1 Home light blinking when the x-axis prox switch was tripped. It was not solid like the y and z axes. I also purchased a different prox switch and got a different blink pattern from the x-axis. That prox did not work, either. I am getting 16.8V to all 3 switches, so that should not be the issue. I connected the prox switch from my z-axis to the x-axis pins and the light in the diagnostics page was solid, no longer blinking. I purchased a second E2E2-X2D1 switch and received the same results as the first switch.

Do either of you know why this M1 Home light would blink in different patterns, but not stay solid? I assume that this indicates a bad switch, but I don't know if you may have run into this and could provide additional insight.

Tweakie: Thank you for this information.
Re: Diagnostics Page Tutorial?
« Reply #4 on: January 08, 2016, 03:56:41 PM »
  I am getting 16.8V to all 3 switches, so that should not be the issue. 

What hardware are you using ?
Will your system accept this voltage ?
 :)

Offline BR549

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Re: Diagnostics Page Tutorial?
« Reply #5 on: January 08, 2016, 03:58:50 PM »
Change the wiring of the switch that works over to the pins of the one that does not and see if it works ok there. THAT will tell you if it is the switch causing the problem. OR possibly the break out board.

(;-) TP
Re: Diagnostics Page Tutorial?
« Reply #6 on: January 08, 2016, 04:55:18 PM »
Overloaded: I am using the switches, mentioned above. I am retrofitting Mach3 on an existing CNC router. The equipment manufacturer built a custom circuit board that acts as a connection board for the smoothstepper (I communicate with Mach3 using an ESS). This custom circuit board is used to connect the switches and motors to the ESS. The voltage going to the switches is coming from the custom circuit board. I used a multimeter to measure the voltage across each of the switches when "open" and read 16.8V. When "closed" the voltage on both the y and z axes switches decrease to 4V but the x axis switch only decreases to 13V. I assume that the voltage decrease is not significant enough to be read by the machine on the x-axis switch.

BR549: I jumped the x-axis switch and used a mechanical switch to test the circuit board. The M1 Home light lit solid and the homing function worked properly when using the mechanical switch. The switch that is normally used on the z-axis worked properly when connected to the x-axis pins (the M1 Home light lit solid, too). This leads me to believe that the circuit board is fine, just the switch is bad (both switches that I bought). However, the voltage and current are within spec for the E2E2 switch on the x-axis.
Re: Diagnostics Page Tutorial?
« Reply #7 on: January 08, 2016, 07:29:23 PM »
Look at page 36

http://industrial.omron.com.br/uploads/arquivos/E2E.pdf

Maybe Leakage Current is the issue.
Easy enough to try the resistor.

Just a shot, good luck.
Regards,
Russ
Re: Diagnostics Page Tutorial?
« Reply #8 on: January 14, 2016, 11:57:42 AM »
Overloaded:
I am away from the office/machine for two weeks, but I will try a resistor and see what happens. I'll post here if it works. For now, we are using a mechanical switch to "solve" the issue but I will continue to pursue this issue to find a prox switch that works and find out what the real issue is.

Thanks for the help,
Nikki