thanks for the incredibly fast responses by the way! kind of unexpected
That is what sets PMDX apart from most of our competitors - we actually provide support :-)
Now settle in with a beverage of your choice. This will be a bit long.
Jogging the machine is now intermittent. some times it will jog for a few seconds, most of the time it wont at all. I believe there is a communication problem. There is no dro movement. previously I had great communication and movement.
The profile package that you sent to me shows that you have every available plug-in enabled. Disable the simulator plug-in. You should never have the Simulator plug-in enabled at the same time you have any other motion device, such as the SmartBOB, enabled. The simulator plug-in doesn't play well with other plug-ins when it isn't selected as *the* motion controller. That could be the cause of some of your motion problems. In general, disable any plug-in that you are not using.
Now optionally disable the shuttle pro plug-in unless you actually HAVE a ShuttlePro. Also, optionally, disable the MODBUS plug-in unless you will be using it. These two are less critical than disabling the simulator. They probably don't cause any issues if they are enabled but have no device to talk to.
I have done a bit more work to the machine and seem to have covered some ground and, well, lost some too. after reading the limit switch recommendations post, I wired all my switches accordingly. The original factory wiring was absurd, so I rewired all the limit switches, made sure they were all normally open, and combined their inputs on pin 11. They all share ground. The home switches are individually on pins 12, 13 15, also sharing ground with the limit switches.
OK so far. For normally open switches they should be wired in parallel so that any one switch closing will cause the SmartBOB input to go to ground. And you should configure the Mach4 limit inputs as active low (see description down below). This configuration will work, but has a drawback that is a wire breaks to one of the switches, the system will never know and that limit switch will be ignored.
An alternate way to wire a group of limit switches to a single input is to use them as normally closed switches (if you can) and wire them all in series. When any one switch opens, the SmartBOB input goes to +5V. You configure the Mach4 limit inputs as active high. This configuration has the advantage that if any wire in the chain of switches breaks or comes loose, Mach4 will see the limit active and halt the machine.
in mach4, they are designated as smartbob pinnouts, and assigned the proper numbers in the dropdown menu. However, the estop no longer toggles in the diagnostics window, and pins 11-15 as well as A B C show active, which they are not.
Where are you seeing pins 11-15 and A, B, C showing as active? The profile you sent me does not map the A/B/C inputs to any Mach4 signal. So I'm guessing that you see this on the SmartBOB Real-Time I/O Status window. If that is the case, then those will show as green (+5V) unless something is actively pulling them to ground, like one of your limit or home switches.
Also, how does mach know which inputs are my home swithches? the limits and homes are different switches, but I don't know how to assign inputs to home. The home settings are not input assignable in the configuration menu.
You have the 5 SmartBOB inputs (Pin10, Pin11, Pin12, Pin13 and Pin15) assigned to Mach4 signals "Input #0" through "Input #4". These Mach4 signal names do nothing except light up an LED on the Mach4 "Machine Diagnostics" tab unless you have a Lua script that reads them and does something. For E-Stop, limit and homing switch functions you should map the SmartBOB signals as follows:
Go to the Mach4 "Configure" menu and select "Mach..". Then click on the "Input Signals" tab. Here are the input signal mappings you should have. Note that you will have to scroll down a ways to find these signal names.
Mach4 Name
-----------
Motor0 Home SmartBOBUSB Pin12 ActiveLow* (this is the X axis home)
Motor1 Home SmartBOBUSB Pin13 ActiveLow* (this is the Y axis home)
Motor2 Home SmartBOBUSB Pin15 ActiveLow* (this is the Z axis home)
Motor0 ++ SmartBOBUSB Pin11 ActiveLoW* (this is the X axis positive limit)
Motor0 -- SmartBOBUSB Pin11 ActiveLoW* (this is the X axis negative limit)
Motor1 ++ SmartBOBUSB Pin11 ActiveLoW* (this is the Y axis positive limit)
Motor1 -- SmartBOBUSB Pin11 ActiveLoW* (this is the Y axis negative limit)
Motor2 ++ SmartBOBUSB Pin11 ActiveLoW* (this is the Z axis positive limit)
Motor2 -- SmartBOBUSB Pin11 ActiveLoW* (this is the Z axis negative limit)
E-Stop SmartBOBUSB Pin10 ActiveHigh*
ActiveLow* means put a green check mark in the "Active Low" column.
ActiveHigh* means put a red "X" in the "Active Low" column.
NOTE: If you change your limit switch wiring to use normally closed switches wired in series, then change all of the above limit switch configuration to "ActiveHigh".
Now, one more topic: Homing.
In the "Homing/SoftLimits" tab you have the X, Y and Z axis set for "Home In Place". That means that when you click on the "Reference All Axis" button, Mach4 will take the current position of the motors and takes that to be the home position (i.e. it doesn't move the motor or pay attention to he home switch input). It then changes the position for that axis to be the value in the "Home Offset" column. For example, if you have "Home In Place" enabled and the "Home Offset" is 1.0000, and the current motor position is 2.000, then clicking on the "Ref All Home" will only change the current position for that axis to 2.000. It will not move the motor. Since you have home switches in your system, un-check "Home In Place" for all axis.
Then go to the "Machine Diagnostics" tab and home each axis one at a time by clicking on the "RefX", "RefY" and then "RefZ" buttons. If the axis initial motion is AWAY from the home switch, then change the "Home Dir" entry for that axis. For example, change from "Pos" to "Neg.
These changes should get you up and running. If not, let us know what it is or isn't doing. Hint - check the status line in the lower left corner of the Mach4 screen, and also click on the history button next to it. If there was an error in our plug-in you should see a message there.
Bob
