Messages

31

Parallel Port breakout boards, motherboards, and dedicated accessories / Re: problem with paralel port pin 10 running onpdmx 126 with mach3

« on: October 19, 2016, 07:59:38 PM »

What revision of PMDX-126 do you have?  This is written on the board just above the serial number block.  On Rev B and Rev C boards, this is in the corner of the board next to the parallel port connector.  On Rev A boards, this is near the EStop LED.  The revision will be a letter followed by a number.  For example, "C2", "B1", etc.

Bob

32

Parallel Port breakout boards, motherboards, and dedicated accessories / Re: How do I validate that the PMDX boards are appropriately isolated

« on: October 17, 2016, 02:00:25 AM »

Well, as soon as you tie 2 commons from different supplies together, they are no longer isolated.  Period.  But whether that is a good thing, bad thing, or not a thing at all depends.

If you have a PMDX-126 and a PMDX-107, here are the sets of isolated connections:

- PMDX-126 parallel ports, step/dir signals on J1 to J4 and output signals on J5 and J6.  These all share the same ground connection (we call it "PCgnd" for "PC side ground) that is isolated from the other groups listed below.

- PMDX-126 30Amp relay contacts on J9, isolated from everything else

- PMDX-126 20 Amp relay contacts on J10, isolated from everything else

- PMDX-126 Input signals on J11 and J12 and the Faullt and EStop inputs on J13.  These all share the same ground that is isolated from the "PCgnd".

- PMDX-126 "RST", "COM" "ERR+" and "ERR-" on J13 are isolated from all other signals.

- PMDX-107 "Aref", "Aout" and "Agnd".  These are isolated from all PMDX-126 signals and also isolated from the "Rev/Dir", "Fwd/Run" and "COM" terminals.

- PMDX-107 "Rev/Dir", "Fwd/Run" and "COM" terminals are isolated from all PMDX-126 signals and also from the PMDX-107's "Aref", "Aout" and "Agnd" terminals.

The starting point for isolation is to keep all motor and spindle power supplies, signals and grounds away from the "PCgnd" and related signals on the PMDX-126.

For those who are running a VFD on their spindle (I know you are not), keep the VFD's common or ground that is used with the 10V speed control input only connected to the PMDX-107's "Agnd" terminal.  Often, that common terminal in VFDs is ties directly to one of the AC lines.  That could (would?) cause nasty things to happen if it got connected to PCgnd or some other signal.

Motor power should go to the motor drivers.  And these drivers should (or usually do) have isolation on the step/dir inputs, which keeps the motor power system isolated from the PMDX-126.

Beyond that, I can't think of a hard & fast rule for what to connect and what to isolate.  Generally isolation does two things: keeps"dangerous" voltages out of parts of the system and helps keep noise from high-current supplies (motor supplies and spindle supplies) from adversely.

Bob

33

Parallel Port breakout boards, motherboards, and dedicated accessories / Re: Random E-Stop events in Mach3 via ESS even though there E-Stop LED on PMD

« on: October 13, 2016, 01:17:35 AM »

If you are seeing 16V to 19V between the PMDX-126's EStop terminal and the adjacent GND terminal then you have something connected to the EStop that is supplying that voltage.  This is not necessarily a bad thing, just unexpected.

From your earlier post I presumed that you had a "normally closed" set of contacts on your EStop switch wired to the PMDX-126's EStop and GND terminals, and also to the KBIC "Enable" and "GND" terminals.  Do you have anything else connected to the EStop terminal?

Disconnect EVERYTHING from the PMDX-126's EStop terminal.  Then close the screw clamp (makes for better measurements).  Now measure the voltage from the EStop terminal to the adjacent GND terminal.  You should see something around 3.6V.

Back to your original question - it should be fine with the KBIC enable connected to the EStop input.

Bob

34

Parallel Port breakout boards, motherboards, and dedicated accessories / Re: How do I get PMDX-179 E-Stop light to work when connected to PMDX-126

« on: October 11, 2016, 10:47:04 PM »

It sounds like the EStop LED on the PMDX-179 is not working. Alas there is no "Self test" feature on the PMDX-179.

If you have a volt meter you can try this:
(1) Connect the PMDX-179 to the PMDX-126 and power them on.
(2) Ground the PMDX-126's EStop input (should make the PMDX-126's red EStop LED turn off).
(3) On the PMDX-179, measure the voltage from J3 (the large screw terminal connector) pin 1 (labeled "EStop") to J3 pin 10 (labeled "PCgnd").  This should be something close to 5V (maybe 3 to 4V or so).
(4) Disconned the PMDX-126's EStop input from GND (should make the PMDX-126's red EStop LED turn on)
(5) Again measure the voltage on the PMDX-179 J3 pin 1 to pin 10.  You should see something close to 0V (something less than 0.7V).

If you get those two voltage readings and no EStop LED on the PMDX-179, then you need to send the PMDX-179 back to us for repair.  If you send it to us, include a note inside explaining what the issue is.  Ship it to the address on our contact page.  On the outside of the box somewhere include "RMA #10111601".

Bob

35

Parallel Port breakout boards, motherboards, and dedicated accessories / Re: Random E-Stop events in Mach3 via ESS even though there E-Stop LED on PMD

« on: October 11, 2016, 10:30:34 PM »

Oh, one more thing: how are you supplying power to the ESS?  Do you have an external +5V power supply (I hope so)?  Or are you supplying +5V from the PMDX-126 by setting JP3 to "On" (hint: don't do that)?

Bob

36

Parallel Port breakout boards, motherboards, and dedicated accessories / Re: Random E-Stop events in Mach3 via ESS even though there E-Stop LED on PMD

« on: October 11, 2016, 10:24:32 PM »

It should be OK as long as the KBIC "Enable" input doesn't load down the PMDX-126's EStop input.  Is there a minimum voltage that needs to be present on the KBIC's "Enable" input in order to disable the drive?  Or is it simply "connect to GND to enable, disconnect from GND to disable"?

If you press the EStop switch, thereby opening the connection between EStop to GND, does the PMDX-126 recognize this as turn on the red EStop LED?  And does that also disable the KBIC?

If you have a volt meter, try this:
(1) With the KBIC's "Enable" input connected to the PMDX-126's EStop terminal (and KBIC GND to EStop GND), press the EStop switch to open the contacts to the PMDX-126.  Measure the voltage between the PMDX-126's EStop terminal and the adjacent GND terminal.

(2) No disconnect the KBIC's "Enable" terminal from the PMDX-126's EStop terminal.  Again, measure the voltage between the PMDX-126's EStop terminal and the adjacent GND terminal.

Let me know what the two voltage readings are.

Bob

37

Parallel Port breakout boards, motherboards, and dedicated accessories / Re: How to connect G540 Motor PS to PMDX-179 so that "Motor Power" LED works

« on: October 11, 2016, 03:20:25 AM »

I think you are mis-interpreting the meaning of JP1 on the PMDX-179.  That jumper only controls whether the "Motor Power Supply" connector (J1) is connected to the PMDX-179's "Motor Power" LED, or an external LED that is connected to J1 pins 3 and 4.

The "Motor Power' LED is intended to reflect the state of the power supply for the motors.  Not when motors are running.  Some systems have a relay or contactor that shuts off power to the motors until the "system" is up and running (i.e. Mach is running and the charge pump is valid if you are using the charge pump signal).  The "Motor Power" LED then indicates whether the power has been switched on to the motors.

So, with your G540 run wires from whatever is providing power to the G450 (terminals 11 and 12) and also connect them to the PMDX-179 on J1 pins 1 and 2.  Leave pins 3 and 4 unconnected.  Set PMDX-179 jumper JP1 to pins 1-2 ("on-board" LED).

The PMDX-179's Motor Power LED circuit is isolated from everything else on the PMDX-179.  So there is no worry about messing up the motor power isolation.

Bob

38

SmartBOB controllers and dedicated accessories / Re: PMDX-424 Gantry squaring (master AND slave drive limit switches)

« on: October 11, 2016, 03:05:59 AM »

Your description of the "PMDX-424 Solution" is essentially correct.

The "Mach4 Solution" is not quite.  In Mach4, homing is handled entirely in the plug-in and motion device.  All that Mach4 does is send the plug-in a message saying "Home this axis and tell me when you are done".  That is the same whether or not Mach4 is configured for slaved motors.  Our plug-in reads the motor mapping information and detects whether there are slaved motors on any axis.

It may be *hypothetically" possible to write Lua code to try and home motors, but it will be impossible to get any kind of accuracy due to the non-deterministic response time in getting home switch info into the Mach4 core.

Someone early on in the Mach4 development (maybe late 2015???) created (or tried to create) Lua code that would un-slave the two gantry motors, map the slave motor to, say, the "C" axis.  It then commanded the "X" and "C" axis to home at the same time.  After the homing was complete it would then re-map the 2nd motor as a slave on the X axis.  This was posted on the Mach4 support forums (https://www.machsupport.com/forum/) so if you are interested you can go search there.  I don't recall if it ever worked.

Bob

39

Parallel Port breakout boards, motherboards, and dedicated accessories / Re: How do I get PMDX-179 E-Stop light to work when connected to PMDX-126

« on: October 11, 2016, 02:52:23 AM »

That is strange. Just to confirm, on the PMDX-179 do you see the "Outputs Enabled" LED on (presuming you have "normal mode without charge pump" selected as you mentioned in your other post)?  And do you see the "Step Activity" LED flicker when  you jog an axis?

If you press and hold the "Test" push-button on the PMDX-126 you should see both the "EStop" and "Error Code" LEDs on the PMDX-179 turn on.  Does that happen?  Note that the "Error Code" LED may now be labeled "Status", I'm not sure.

Bob

40

Parallel Port breakout boards, motherboards, and dedicated accessories / Re: Should I enable charge pump signal between PMDX-1267 and PMDX-107 Speed control?

« on: October 11, 2016, 02:39:15 AM »

When the PMDX-107 is plugged into a PMDX-126 you can always leave the PMDX-107 in "require CPOK" mode.  The PMDX-126 will provide the proper signal to the 107 even if the PMDX-126 is configured to ignore charge pump.  Whenever the PMDX-126's "Outputs Enabled" LED is on, the PMDX-107 will be enabled.

Bob

41

Parallel Port breakout boards, motherboards, and dedicated accessories / Re: Random E-Stop events in Mach3 via ESS even though there E-Stop LED on PMD

« on: October 11, 2016, 02:30:47 AM »

If you don't see the red EStop LED on the PMDX-126 turn on, then the electronics on the PMDX-126 are not generating the EStop.  The PMDX-126 has an EStop pulse stretcher on it.  The PMDX-126 will *always* output an EStop pulse that is at least 1 second wide, even if there is a very narrow pulse on the EStop input.

We have seen instances where noise couples into the EStop signal between the PMDX-126 and the PC's parallel port.  I can't recall if we've seen this when using a SmoothStepper.  It sounds like this may be the issue in your case.

The usual suggestions are to get the electrically noisy devices as far away from the PMDX-126/ESS as you can (i.e. VFDs or spindle controllers are the usual culprit).  I believe you can also add filtering on the EStop signal (port 1 pin 10) in the ESS plug-in configuration. If so, you can try that and see if it helps.

How long are the ribbon cable(s) between the PMDX-126 and the ESS?  Do you have the ESS mounted on the PMDX-126 using the 6" cables that we sell (or like the ones we sell)?

Bob

42

Parallel Port breakout boards, motherboards, and dedicated accessories / Re: PMDX 126 & 108 - Spindle Encoder

« on: October 08, 2016, 09:45:54 PM »

100 line encoders should be fairly common.  At 5K RPM that would be 8333 Hz (120 microsecond period) on the "A" and "B" phase signals.  That is still too fast for the slower input on your VFD (2 KHz max), but you could run 1 line into the higher speed input.  And the PMDX-108-Input should handle that just fine.

Bob

43

Parallel Port breakout boards, motherboards, and dedicated accessories / Re: PMDX 126 & 108 - Spindle Encoder

« on: October 07, 2016, 11:35:00 PM »

I have a 2048ppr encoder, so I'll have to figure out something.  I plan to spin to motor up to 5kRPM, so that's something like 170KHz - too much for even the "EA" terminal.

WJ200 cannot handle anything even close to 170 KHz.  It can take 32KHz max on the higher speed of the 2 terminals.  And I'm not even sure the PMDX-108-Input will pass those pulses through.  170 KHz (actually, 170.667 KHz) give a period of 5.86 microseconds.  And presuming the waveform is a 50% duty cycle square wave, the "high" and "low" portions are half that: 2.93 microseconds.  We specify the PMDX-108-Input's "response time" at 5us max but we don't specify the minimum pulse width.  That signal *may* make it through the 108, or it may not, or it may make it but be greatly distorted.

Now, if you're still willing to help with a non-PMDX issue: how do I reconcile the encoder PPR to VFD frequency limitation problem?  I know I can set the PPR in the VFD, but I assume the VFD can't even read the signals fast enough to do the PPR math (given the 36KHz or 2KHz limits).

Get a different, lower resolution encoder.  Do you really need to resolve the spindle position down to 0.175 degrees?  Or 1/4 of that (0.044 degrees) if you use quadrature mode?

Is there some 'counter' board in the universe that will drop the encoder pulses down to a frequency the VFD can accept?  Or... if I just hook the index (Z) signal to the "EA" input and have a 1 PPR encoder pulse would that still work?  The PMDX/ETH400/UCCNC would get the full 2048 PPR signal, but the VFD would not...

The WJ200 does not support a 1-pulse-per-revolution encoder signal (see register P004, 32 to 1024  pulses per rev).

As far as using the "EA" terminal only (single phase), I'm confused by the VFD manual.  Page 3-115 illustrates three diagrams for using the "EB" terminal as a direction indicator, but I'm lost.  The first one appears to be a relay-sourced voltage input (assuming 24Vdc) where voltage in indicates FWD and 0Vdc indicates REV.  I might be able to do this using the 106/107 FWD/REV relay?

You *might* be able to.  In a quick scan of the manual I could not find if there is a separate "dir" input for controlled in the directions, as opposed to the EB/EA Pins to reporting current direction.  If there are two separate "DIR" inputs- one for commanding the direction and one for reporting the direction, then you would use the PMDX-107 solid-state relay outputs to control the "commanded direction" inputs signal.  *IF* there are two spindle direction signals (one for commanded dir and one for actual dir), you *may* be able to wire them in parallel.

Bob

44

Parallel Port breakout boards, motherboards, and dedicated accessories / Re: PMDX 126 & 108 - Spindle Encoder

« on: October 07, 2016, 01:59:37 AM »

The WJ200 VFD accepts a 2-channel single-ended signal (A, B, GND).  The A-terminal can be 5-24Vdc, but the B-terminal must be 24Vdc only.

I can't find where the "A" terminal (I presume this is the "EA" terminal) is 5V only.  The example wiring diagram on page 20 of the "Quick Reference Guide" that I found says "EA" is 24VDC, and the table on page 21 says "EB" is 27V max (so I would presume 24V is OK).

Something to watch out for is the "EB" input is 2 KHz max.  This may be an issue depending on what your encoder resolution is and what your max RPM is.

The encoder connections to the PMDX boards must go in the PMDX-108 if they are 24V signals.  The PMDX-126's inputs can handle 24V, but only if the 24V is from a PNP-style interface where it is either floating or connected to +24V.  The encoder's outputs are most likely totem pole outputs which will not work with the PMDX-126 when they switch from 0V to +24V.  That means they will appear on pins 2-9 on the 2nd parallel port.

Now on to your questions:

(1)  You don't *need" to use the differential signals from the encoder.  You can simply wire it up as a single ended interface and leave the "A-", "B-" and "Z-" terminals unconnected.

If you are worried about loading down the encoder outputs, you may be able to connect the "A+", "B+" and "GND" to the VFD inputs, and the "A-", "B-" and "GND" to the PMDX-108 inputs.  If you do this, you may need to invert the encoder direction or encoder input polarity.  You can also connect either the "Z+" or "Z-" (either one but not both) to the PMDX-108.

(2) No, the PMDX-108 (nor the PMDX-105) cannot translate differential to signle-ended.

By the way, if you really DID mean to type "PMDX-105" in a couple of places, the PMDX-105 will not work with your encoder as the PMDX-105 has slower opto isolators on it and most likely won't pass the encoder signals through at higher RPM.

(3) I at all possible you should use a shielded cable for the encoder signals.  Use wires for the A/B/Z and GND connections, and tie the shield to GND **AT ONE END OF THE CABLE ONLY!!!**.  Since none of the PMDX boards do differential to single-ended conversion, you will have to run single-ended signals from the encoder.

(4) Yes, the PMDX-108 can take totem-poll 24V input signals and convert them to 0-5V.  The PMDX-126 cannot handle totem-pole 24V inputs as I mentioned above.

Any clearer?  Or have I confused you even more?

Bob

45

SmartBOB controllers and dedicated accessories / Re: Mach4 can't find SmartBob 411

« on: October 05, 2016, 07:52:24 PM »

I'm glad you found the solution.

Though I am curious why the Reperier server (you only uninstalled the server, right) would interfere with the SmartBOB.  Is it possible that the server software was opening the SmartBOB's COM port (COM5) and keeping it open for what it thought was your printer's COM port?  That is about the only thing I can think of that would have interfered.

If you have the time an inclination to try this (totally optional) - re-install the Reperier server.  Then look in it's configuration to see what COM ports it thinks printers are on (if any).  If the server appears to be using COM5 (which you said was the SmartBOB COM port) then see if you can change it to some other COM port.  Then see if the Mach4 can find the SmartBOB.  If the server does NOT appear to be connecting to COM5 and Mach4 still cannot find the SmartBOB, then create the debug log as per the FAQ I mentioned earlier and send us the profile package.  Again, this is optional, but may help other customers who might be using the Reperier s/w.

Bob