I haven't used Mach4 Lathe very much yet But the other day I had the PID working pretty good. It was holding the rpm pretty close. I used one of the cutting cycles and it defaulted to css mode. Now whatever I do the rpm is way high, If I set rpm to 200 it runs at around 530 rpm and if I move the x axis in smaller and run G97 the rpm speeds up. I've tried everything I can think of. I shut everything down, the program, the smoothstepper and the machine. and started again. Still runs way faster and will speed up with smaller x axis values. The code list at the bottom shows G97 which as far as I know is fixed rpm.
What am I doing wrong.
Attached the screen capture.
Help please.

Well I shut down last night and started up this morning. It's now working ok. The only thing I did not shut down last night was the computer. Would something in the operating sys cause it to not switch to G97 constant rpm mode?

OK, It started acting up again today after a little time using it. I recently upgraded to Mach4 and a smoothstepper ess. I'm running on a gecko540 drive. It looks like its overheating the 540 drive now.
It never overheated before with mach3 and parallel port.
Does anyone think the switch to the smoothstepper would overheat the gecko drive?

Hi,
I've been using an ESS for over eight years, and its not overheated anything. The ESS has CMOS outputs capable of 30mA tops....its not going to
overheat any device plugged into it.

Craig

G97 S1000 M3 will set the spindle speed to a fixed speed of 1000 RPM.

G96 S200 M3 will set the spindle speed to 200 feet or 200 meters a minute based on the cutting diameter and will adjust the speed as the diameter changes.  Tool diameter offsets have to be set correctly too.

Just typing G97 will not change anything if you do not issue a Snnnn M3 with it.

I'm not exactly sure what is going on with this. I put fans and heatsink on the drive last night. It hasn't done the wierd stuf today like when giving a G1X0F5 command it goes at G0 speed multiple times.  But It does just stop and the steppers won't move at all. The drive does not have a fault and Mach just sits there waiting for them to move. It happens a lot when trying to thread. It starts and moves to the thread start position and judt sits there waiting for the index pulse. Hit stop and then nothing will move. reset the drive sometimes will fix it and sometimes have to reset Mach4. Still no faults. Start threading again and it works fine.
Anyone near Kissimmee FL?
 

Post your code so we can see just what it is doing.

Are you set to feed per minute or feed per rev?