No problem, here it is again. I had to rename it because the system says it already has a file of that name.
I'm using V270 for the ESS. Everything worked fine with Mach 4 V4.2.0.3804 ESS V231 but this problem and the issue with the Single Step being out of sync have been introduced by this version.
I have both feed hold and stop on the control panel. I believe the Hold also is slow to react with this version but I'll have to check.

I don't understand why the profile I'm using shows these issues. Surely this fundamental behaviour is controlled by the core software, not by the profile?

I've also noticed that when I interrupt a program using the Stop button and then go to zero the DRO, the DRO doesn't clear until I disable the servos and re-enable them again.
I've just checked this, and it happens every time. If I don't disable the drive, the DRO clear doesn't work, but the jogs do. They appear to be correct, as if the clear button wasn't pressed. However, when the drive is disabled, the DRO jumps as if it was retrospectively applying the zero.
So it looks like the DRO does actually get cleared, but the display doesn't reflect that until the drives are disabled.

Having had so many issues with my existing profile and this latest build, I thought I'd better try it with the supplied default Mach4Mill profile.
I've set up all of the configurations in Mach4 and the ESS but it comes up with the following error when I go to edit the ESS plugin...

Warning! Not connected to the ESS board

I'm running the following...
Mach4 V4.2.0.4612 ESS V270 won't connect to the ESS

I know the ESS works because I can switch back to my original profile and it does connect, so this is clearly not a hardware issue.

Just a few things worth noting because they may have some bearing on the issue.

1) Ever since I've used Mach4, regardless of the previous version and the version of the plugin, I've noticed that sometimes the splash screen for the ESS comes up, immediately followed by Mach4 exiting. Sometimes this happens two or three times before Mach4 starts properely and loads the screen.
2) That doesn't happen with this latest build. The Warp V270 spash screen flashes up and it always completes the boot. However, the control doesn't enable, so it doesn't look like the ESS is communicating, even though there's no error message.
3) It's only when you go to explicitly configure the plugin that it tells you that it's not connected.

So my guess is that right at the very start of the boot process of Mach4, there's an attempt to connect to the plugin, and that fails, even though it doesn't say so.
I notice that there's definitely a longer pause of about 6 seconds when the Warp V270 spash screen shows when it's loading my original profile.
When I boot it with the default profile, the Warp V270 spash screen only shows for about 2 seconds, so something is clearly very different about what's happening when it starts up.

Any ideas, because at the moment it's unusable with the default profile because it's clearly not connecting to the ESS

please dont shoot me

you have deselected the sim and enabled the ess in mach4 config. right

you have run the setup program from warp9td site to configure the ethernet and check to see if it runs

you have run the advanced part of the above to configure the firewall act of the pc


yes I have run into that trap when having to rebuild a config


apologies if you have done the above

but IMHO this is looking like a pc problem not mach4 or ESS


what I do is use GPedit and strip out all I do not need , prevent any updates , prevent any sleep of anything ( usb disk (ssd/hhd) , processor and mem

my pc  Mill controller has no internet , no other programs just enough to run Mach4 nothing else

 

Many thanks for all of that advice, I'll check through it all. I just assumed that if one profile worked and another doesn't, it was a problem with the profile that didn't. I don't know what any profile contains or how one differs from another.

Nothing else is different on the PC, I just select a different profile from the loader. One connects to the ESS, the other doesn't.

Ok, just to check the suggestions off point by point...

I hadn't realised the the ESS had to be selected in the Select Motion Device, that's fixed it.
The ESS is ticked as enabled in the Mach4 config plugins tab
The ESS plugin appears in the Configure>Plugins dropdown list
When I click on it is when I get the dialog box saying there's no connection.
I've run the Warp9Tech Design - SCU application and applied the defaults from File>Windows performance tuning.

Many thanks for your help

Ok
"When I click on it is when I get the dialog box saying there's no connection."
I have had this when the ESS was not powered

so the ESS and SCU talk correctly therefore at this point the ESS and the pc are talking

you have powered down and power back up

your mill and the ESS are powered up at this point then the pc



sorry if my replies are a bit stilted I suffer from Dyslexia therefor I have difficulty in getting things down

You were right about the Simulator, the machine now does talk to the ESS.

However, there's still a problem, albeit a different one.

Now I'm finding that the machine won't move smoothly, it keeps pausing during the moves. I've enabled the warning if the 'Show Sotware Velocity FIFO Ran Dry Msgs'.
I've just run a trivial program to mover between two points after starting the spindle. It paused 8 times during those moves. When it finished, it reported 3 errors which makes no sense.
If I click Cycle Start and then immediately stop it before any moves at all, it reported 4 errors. I don't think this reporting feature works.

Another bizarre thing, is that when I go back to my original profile, that now single steps correctly! In other words, it was always one step behind before, and now, having run this new profile, it single steps and stays in synch!!! Something clearly gets saved in a common area that's shared between profiles that's changed the behaviour. It's very odd.

Ok, it looks like the hardware buffer needed to be longer in the ESS. The default isn't enough for the very high resolution that I'm running. It's odd that it didn't warn that there was an issue. Clearly the buffer ran dry, but it didn't report it, even though the reporting is on.

Anyway, this profile does seem to work without crashing on exit unlike the old profile. I guess I'll just have to bit the bullet and make all those changes to the screen design that I laboriously had to do on the old profile.

thanks for the update

if I can only give you a couple of thoughts

copy the entire mach4 directory to say a usb stick

make one change to the setup and test dont go hog wild and change a lot at once its tempting I know believe me

made my day to have offered a bit of knowledge and moved you forward .

my mill is a small 4 axis job ( all cast iron though) trouble with it it  had a Far Eastern controller on mach3 well the controller went south , so I elected to go the Mach4 ESS route , now no drawings and all wires blue and no lables 🤯 9 limits etc. took a while to do the knitting but is works ok ,so my knowledge is from the sorting of my own problem , but I was a fully qualified sparks in industrial equipment no drawings was the norm machines to old ( that sounds good as I have not been in work for 24 years now ) but keep the remaining brain cell active with the workshop /cad cam for miniature steam engines

stay safe and be safe