Hello,

My name’s Joseph and I work for a garage door manufacturer that had been using Mach3 (Ports and Pins) for years and most recently converted to Mach4 connected with a Warp9 ESS. I’m reaching out this morning because we’ve experienced what we believe to be an extremely odd issue that we have been unable to resolve or work around and were wondering if we could ask your help or advice in solving it?

What’s happened is that about midway through a day of milling/cutting, after about 25 successful cuts, on the 26th cut or so, the CNC machine spindle suddenly began to “jolt” upwards upon the start of every toolpath into its Z-Axis upper limit, creating a loud grind sound and shaking the machine. When this began, we reverted back to Mach3 parallel port driver (ports and pins setup) to keep running and began investigating what could possibly be wrong.

In doing so, we’ve re-installed/replaced all relevant stepper motors and hardware controls (that we know of) within our CNC machine configuration, swapped out the Warp9 ESS for our backup Warp9 ESS of the very same make/type, and have combed through Mach3 and Mach4’s settings to examine whether it’s possible a setting was accidentally altered and unfortunately, we did not find anything that’s alleviated this issue. At this point we are unsure what is specifically wrong or the cause to this effect, whether it’s a setting in Mach3 or Mach4, the Warp9 ESS itself, or how they communicate with one another and/or the CNC machine.

Essentially, when we start running a toolpath, the bit jumps upward a few inches and runs into its Z-Axis limit, simultaneously on the Mach3 and Mach4 G-Code read outs (main screen) it appears that the system skips 4 or 5 lines instantly and “jumps” to line 5 or 6 on every toolpath run now when operating through the Warp9 ESS. We’ve gone through every piece of documentation we’re aware of, attempted to re-set up Mach3 with the backup Warp9 ESS and Mach4 with the backup Warp9 ESS to no avail on various computers and we’re still experiencing the same issue whether or not we run Mach3 or Mach4, no matter which Warp9 ESS is installed. I can confirm that Mach3 (IF NEED BE, I CAN FILM A VIDEO OF WHAT THE BIT AND G-CODE READ OUT DOES, WE’RE JUST TRYING NOT TO RUN THE SPINDLE INTO ITS Z-AXIS LIMIT TOO OFTEN IF AGAIN AT ALL*)

We were wondering if by chance you guys have come across this issue before and if you knew if there was an applicable fix that we could implement? Without Mach3 or Mach4 on Windows 10/11, we cannot access other communication applications we use between the office and CNC machine operator to ensure quality operation/order satisfaction so we’d really love to have Mach3 or Mach4 work with the ESS to have that, otherwise we will use Mach3 with the Parallel Port Driver (ports and pins) setup and make do.

I understand this is a complex question and a lot of information I’m throwing at you, I really appreciate any and all help that you can provide with this issue!

Thanks very much,

Joseph

The only thing that I can think of which could affect Mach3 and Mach4 operation in a similar manner despite different PC’s, ESS’s, etc. (assuming there is not something unusual in your GCode file) would be electrical noise. This could be caused by something like a compressor starting up or a bad contactor somewhere which is causing an arc – basically electrical noise on the mains supply.
 
I would start out by checking that the dc. supply to your ESS is sound and in accordance with Warp9TD’s recommendations. Its supply cable, signal wires and the Ethernet cable are not being routed close to the spindle motor wiring (or its associated VFD wiring).
Also check that during the Mach4 conversion you have not compromised the grounding / shielding of any wiring relating to the machine in general.

Hope this helps.

Tweakie.