Anyway to tell Mach3 a 203v faulted?

[slowbob]

Hi,

Is there anyway to feedback from the gecko 203v to let Mach3 know the dirve faulted? Since the yellow LED comes on I think this might be possible.
Last night I lost a very nice piece of wood because the Z-Axis faulted.

Thanks,
Bob Stack

[ger21]

What caused the fault? A stepper drive shouldn't fault while running.

[Al_The_Man]

There doesn't appear to be a drive fault output available?
Al.

[slowbob]

I'm not sure what faulted the motor. This is the 2nd time this has happened. gecko is on a heat sink and there is a fan blowing across it.
I"m using:
570 oz stepper with a 2:1 ratio
5tpi ballscrew
NXK linear bearings

The My Z axis with spindle is probably around 25 lbs. I'm using a chinese import spindle around 12lbs + fluid bearings + plates... I ordered a gas spring last night to help offset the weight but I"m not sure that is the problem.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks,

p.s. I am working on another cnc and I'm going to go with servo's next time.

[Al_The_Man]

I would think that is a bit of oversight in design, many drives have a fault output, especially in the case of a stepper where there is no closed loop to detect an error in motion?
Al.

[slowbob]

Turns out the fault was caused by a short. I crushed a wire when I moved it from our shop, the coolest shop on earth (Home) to my home.

Having a fault/error output would be a good feature. Perhaps in the future.

I have started a new build and this time I'm going with servos...

Thanks for the replies,
Bob