HELP!,
I have a CS11G BOB, ESS Smoothstepper, and Emerson VFD running a 1.5 HP motor that turns 3450RPM with a belt drive to bring the RPMS to 5000 and my VFD set at 76hz
The problem is I had everything working as it should with this setup in MACH 3, but now I have switched to MACH 4 and of course they develop great control software but no instructions on how to really use it. When I setup my ESS software I can get the spindle to come on but it is a full RPMs and my RPMS is reading 27-30,000 RPMs on the MACH Screen, but only turning 5000 rpm at the spindle. My spindle setup in MACH 4 Config is MIN: 0.00 Max: 5000 with a motor RPM at 3450. No matter what I do I cannot adjust the RPMs by using either an M3 S#####, or M4 S#### code or with the slider on MACH 4 screen. when I shut the spindle off it turn off but has a little backwards burp at the end. The MACH 4 screen will not let me input the desired RPMs as no matter what I put in there it goes right back to what was there when I hit enter. when the spindle is not running the RPM box show an RPM anywhere form 2000-4000.
I have the following set:
SPINDLE PWM = port 1 pin 14 (also tried it set to pin 16)
SPINDLE FWD =port 1 pin 16 (also tried it set to pin 14)
I have also tried moving pin 14 to SPINDLE ON and at one time I got control of the RPMs (even tho they were wrong) with the % up or down slider but could not get the spindle above 2000rpm (using a meter to check), but when I closed MACH 4 to save I restarted and could not even get the spindle to turn on.
Could someone who is way smarter than me please spell it out step by step how I should have this set up/ I have searched the forum, youtube, warp9 and artsoft and there is no clear direction other than warp9's attempt to describe it, but they fall way short on showing everything else that goes with the setup.
Beginning to think this was the worst upgrade and waste of money I have done yet to this machine, I have been down for almost 2 weeks simply because of this, when I could have just stuck with what I had and dealt with the little bugs in MACH 3 and had a lot less pain while still being able to cut parts. I must say that customer support by means of clear instructions for ESS and MACH 4 are the worst I have ever seen in any product, they label it as a "Hobby" software, but yet it takes a software engineer and rocket scientist to figure it out! I am just a guy in his garage trying to have a functional CNC mill, not a software programmer........
Thanks to all of you out there that provide some guidance for us that don't get it.