I am setting up Mach 4 with an ESS. I have followed all of the steps so far. I am working on the spindle and having no luck getting it running. One of the things I have found people discussing online is to use the MDI tab to enter commands. But the tab is missing. How do I get it to show up.

I am using a demo of Mach 4 hobby. Do I need a different version, or need to get the license for it to work?

Are you sure it's missing?
It is in the same spot the G Code is displayed.  You will see the "G Code" tab and the "MDI" tab there.

I am using a demo of Mach 4 hobby. Do I need a different version, or need to get the license for it to work?

Demo mode will time out after a random amount of time. Usually 5 - 15 minutes. When it times out all outputs stop working.

I see the MDI is now not an extra tab any more, but where can I find the "verify" button to check for position errors?

many thanks,
Georg

Hi,

but where can I find the "verify" button to check for position errors?

What exactly do you mean? I've been using Mach4 for seven years and Mach3 before that and I don't recall seeing any
'verify' button that can magically check for position errors. To my knowledge that would require an absolute linear encoder
or perhaps a multi turn absolute rotary encoder on the servos/steppers.

It has always been the complaint that Mach is essentially an open loop system, whereby Mach directs the machine to a given location
and Mach ASSUMES that it got there correctly. Mach is not capable , at least in realtime, to accept  feedback data to establish whether
the machine is in error.

If you have linear scales say, you could once Mach has directed the machine to move to a given location  and stop, then Mach could read the linear
scales and thereby determine is the machine has faithfully executed the move....but only once its stopped.

Craig

Hi Craig,
the verify button in mach3 just does an additional homing to compare the position to the previous homing.
This is a very common method to check for step losses. The verify button is in the MDI tab on mach3. I've seen screenshots of Mach4 where the user also had an extra mdi tab with this verify button, my ( downloaded just some few days ago) version version doesn't..

Georg

Hi,
are you anticipating that your machine is going to lose steps?

Craig

Hi,

no, I think I don't have step loss in this machine. I just want to check the accuracy of the endstops.

Georg