Hello Guest it is March 29, 2024, 01:23:00 AM

Author Topic: Error: Disarmed Drives Unexpectedly  (Read 5642 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Error: Disarmed Drives Unexpectedly
« on: November 06, 2017, 11:14:32 AM »
Using an Integra  with an encoder board. Everything is connected and we get communication with Mach 4 - Tested e-stop button, limits, probe and some outputs while the system is in disable state - all working.

The issue is when we arm the system we get:

Error: Disarmed Drivers Unexpectedly. Please do not run any other software on this computer while Mach is controlling the machine.

Nothing else is running (except the standard windows services)


Any ideas?

Thanks in advance!
Re: Error: Disarmed Drives Unexpectedly
« Reply #1 on: November 06, 2017, 11:35:05 AM »
Does it disarm as soon as you enable Mach4 or is it disarming when running the motors?
Re: Error: Disarmed Drives Unexpectedly
« Reply #2 on: November 06, 2017, 12:21:33 PM »
Thank you for the prompt reply. Yes it does usually. Sometimes it takes about 15 seconds. Disabling the estop input in Mach allows me to enable the machine though which is odd.

It may be important to note that if the machine is disabled the estop does trigger (verified by the diagnostic LED in my custom diagnostic screen for inputs). It is 24v normally closed and there is no noise issue. The estop LED does not "flicker". I have checked for noise with an RF analyzer we have here and there is negligible noise. The estop button is in good working condition. I am perplexed.

Also the estop LED on the 7737 will light when we push the estop and remains unlit when the hardware estop button is reset; It also does not flicker.

There is a slight flicker on the first of the four LEDs furthest from the estop led on the 7737 but looks to be some sort of heartbeat - I can not find documentation on the LEDs for that board so I am not sure. Here is all I know for sure.


LED.      LED.       LED.       LED
 |            |             |            |
Estop.     ?             ?            ? <- this one flickers
Re: Error: Disarmed Drives Unexpectedly
« Reply #3 on: November 06, 2017, 12:22:48 PM »
Sorry - I meant to clarify - Yes. It errors on arming within 15 seconds. Never get a chance to apply motion.
Re: Error: Disarmed Drives Unexpectedly
« Reply #4 on: November 06, 2017, 01:41:21 PM »
Looks like you maybe be missing the Earth ground. On the corner 8 Pin plug that has both 24v and gnd terminals connect an earth ground to the gnd.
Re: Error: Disarmed Drives Unexpectedly
« Reply #5 on: November 06, 2017, 04:30:41 PM »
Earth ground is connected. I had to jumper the estop to 24V on the encoder board and use an input directly on the Integra for the mushroom estop buttons.. Not sure why. I will debug this later.

Now the issue is that with the encoders enabled in the plugin settings I can get motion but the Mach DROs do not update. For now I have set the encoder feedback to "undefined" so I am not able to run fully closed loop. Any suggestions?

I see the encoders are indeed reading when I test motion from the plugin control but Mach will not reflect motion. If I move too quickly I get an error related to the encoders that states something about max following error and get an estop.

I probably have something in the plugin config page set wrong but when testing the motor from the plugin I see the max following error never exceeds 10k. Not sure what the gain and motion threshold count does.

Just to be sure I am right... In the plugin I have Command Input Source set to MachXX, Type = stepper and in the Feedback the source was Encoder, Gain 1, Max Follow 10k, count 4. Basically the default.

I have tried this with both a Yaskawa servo/driver and a DMM DYN 4.

Last issue is that Mach 4 no longer honors the home prox sensors. They are being read but the Ref All Home causes each axis to pass the prox trip point. I can probably figure this out - the encoder feedback is my major issue at the moment.

Thank you again.

Re: Error: Disarmed Drives Unexpectedly
« Reply #6 on: November 06, 2017, 04:34:29 PM »
you can re-enable encoder feedback and do test motion.  you can then see the feedback line which way it is moving when you command test motion.  if it moving opposite to the commanded, then all you have to do it to reverse the encoder polarity in the system tab.  also make sure you have encoder debounce set to 100mhz or more.
Re: Error: Disarmed Drives Unexpectedly
« Reply #7 on: November 06, 2017, 04:38:13 PM »

>I had to jumper the estop to 24V on the encoder board and use an input directly on the Integra

make sure you use the same 24v supply on both the 7737 encoder board and the Integra unit.  just to be safe, take 24 and GND from Integra J16 and connect to 24V and Gnd on 7737 J3.
Re: Error: Disarmed Drives Unexpectedly
« Reply #8 on: November 06, 2017, 05:42:58 PM »
Will do. Our power supply is a custom 24/12/5 common ground system. Works well with GE controllers but I will follow your advice just to be sure.

I was also mistaken about the plugin reading the encoder... It appears there are 3 radio buttons: Load Enc, Motor Enc and Commanded. I had the Load Enc selected. With Motor Enc I see no updates but get movement. Oddly if I move slow it will not error out (which it should since there encoder is not being read it appears)

I checked the driver with an oscilloscope and determined the driver is indeed putting out information so I am not sure where the issue is. We have a custom cable (verified pinout) using cat 6 shielded ethernet cable from the encoder board to the driver. A, B and Z are all connected.

We followed standard ethernet pinout on the encoder board so assuming the order is ow, o, gw, b, bw, g, bw, b then it is connected properly. We also checked that J8 is the expansion being used (as also verified by the estop earlier).

We also updated Mach to the latest, updated the firmware on the Integra and the Mach 4 plugins.

Do you have any ideas?
Re: Error: Disarmed Drives Unexpectedly
« Reply #9 on: November 06, 2017, 07:04:40 PM »

can you try different ribbon cable?

make sure 24v and GND between 7737 and Integra are connected like I told you in the previous post.