Bill,
Here is a copy of the reply I posted to you over on the Yahoo group the other day, couldnt find you here they day you posted there.....
Re: New to Mach3, seeking recommendations and ideas
Bill,
First off, Welcome to the group, here are my opions about your
questions, there are many ways to
do what you ask, so I am sure others here will give you alternate
solutions. That is the good thing
about this board, you can get all kinds of ways people have solved or
would solve an issue your having.
Anserwing the last question 1st, yes, move up to the Smooth Stepper
to solve your pulse/movement issue.
I wont bother with telling you to add a second P Port for your I/O
since you wouldnt be happy ultimatly with
the motion you get. So all the following "Opions" are based on the SS.
E-Stop: If you E-Stop Mach (Reset button), for any reason you have
lost steps in Mach, so it is a moot question
at the Drives. You will need to have a "Feed Hold" or "Stop"
condition activate on non-critical errors, and
E-Stop on Critical errors. The Feedhold will keep your steps, but
what ever current line your on, it will run
to the end. The Stop will decelerate per your axis profile right
where it is.
On your inputs below if more than the SS can handle, depending on how
fancy you want to get, I would probably use Arturos M11 or M13 modbus
board,
or a PLC if you want intellegent I/O. If you have enough free inputs
with the Smooth stepper then you wont
need the above.
1. Spindle driver fault signal from the AMC servo amp.
I would like to have a separate input for this signal which would
estop the system but show a spindle drive fault.
/// you have two options, if you want the error to flash a user Led
an with an error lable next to it use brains.
If you want a message to scroll, use the macropump with an interlock
and set a "Ticker", message when that input goes
hot, it will scroll the error message(and can also use a combination
of the two).
2. Spindle power supply over current circuit breaker
I would like to have a separate input for this signal which would
estop the system but show a spindle power supply fault.
///see answer #1 above
3. Spindle mechanical brake
On my ahha machines I have simply added a line to the M03, M04, and
M05 m-code map file to enable and disable the brake. I'm not sure
how to implement this in mach3. I would also like to have an m-
function for the brake also.
I will control the electro mechanical magnetic brake with a 120 VAC
solid state relay controlling a 24vdc power supply.
///You can add code to your M3 and M4 macros to handle your Brake on
and
///your M5 can handle the brake off as well.
///Note: under ports and pins, under spindle, set your Spin up, and
spin down delay time to
///some value in seconds, that your spindle needs.
/// Here is the adjusted M3, 4 and M5 edit the output signals for
your situation
///I am assuming you brake is always on, unles told to turn off.
///Open vb editor under the operator dropdown, brows to the macros
folder under mach3, then look for your
///machines "Profile" folder, open up the M3.m1s, (same for the M4,
and M5) edits to macros follow
///save them make sure they are saving in the folder you got them
from, and that your saving it
///with the correct name.
'M3.m1s
ActivateSignal(OUTPUT6) 'Brake off, this output on, releases the
brake
DoSpinCW()
'M4.m1s
ActivateSignal(OUTPUT6) 'Brake off
DoSpinCCW()
'M5.m1s
DeActivateSignal(OUTPUT6) 'Brake on
DoSpinStop()
Custom Spindle Brake macros:
'M1000.m1s
ActivateSignal(OUTPUT6)
'M1001.m1s
DeActivateSignal(OUTPUT6)
4. Oiler
///Note: what you can do here is, in Brains, have it look at the
spindle CW and CCW LED through a "Or" lobe.
///When eigther of those are on (the spindle is running), send that
through the Timer, pick
///some value like squirt oil every 5-30 minutes of spindle run time,
make it cumlative, set
///the Terminator to the output# that goes to your Oiler motor/pump
5. Axis drive power supply
Currently the Axis drive power supply is controlled by at 120 VAC
solid state relay driven by the charge pump circuit on the PMDX
board.
This works but I don't like to remove power from the stepper drives
every time there is a e-stop condition as the drives will loose
position. On an ahha system, pushing estop caused all axis to ramp
to a stop leaving the drives powered on. Returning from a e-stop
condition didn't require resetting home and part zero.
I would like charge pump #1 to control the pmdx boards which would
be disabled when in estop. The spindle power supply SSR is also
connected to this charge pump.
I would like to use the second charge pump output to control the
axis drive power supply and stay powered up during estop. I know
about the check box to make this work this way but it seems that it
only applies to the first charge pump. I would use a stand alone
charge pump circuit for this.
In the beginning it was suggested I just hook the pc power supply 12
volts to the axis power supply SSR. This worked but as the pc powers
up there are some glitches on the axis drives.
//// E-Stop notes at the beginning, about loosing steps.
//// You can have one of your 6 ENABLE output signals control your
Drive PS relay
/// The charge pump issues are for the Parallel ports, it really
doesnt apply to the Smooth stepper
///it only loads when the Plugin loads. The charge pumps where for
safety since when windows boots
///it can randomly twiddle the PP as it comes up. SS doesnt come on
line until Mach is up.
6. Auxiliary AC Outlet
///solutions as above
7. Resolution (steps per inch)
The machine is currently configured to run at 50,800 steps per inch.
The drives are 10 microstep G201 and I don't have the G901 boards
installed.
The machine runs very smoothly but the resolution is quite un
useable and this hurts the performance with the step limitations of
mach3. I am running the kernel speed at 60K per machmotion.com's
recommendation.
I am trying to decide whether I should just buy the G901 boards and
reduce the drives resolution or just buy the smooth stepper board.
Any opinions?
///Smooth Stepper.
Scott