Newbie Setting Up His G540

[phil m]

Hey all,

I bought Peter Homann's kit located here:
http://homanndesigns.com/store/index...products_id=90

and I wired the box according to his schematic over here:
http://www.homanndesigns.com/EN010_V8.pdf

The only difference between my box and the schemtic is that I completely dropped the auxiliary relay output feature and I haven't yet wired the chiller or the two DB9 outputs.

I downloaded the manuals and the initial setup giude from geckodrive.com and I'm having problems figuring out whats going on here.

- I adjusted my printer port to EPP
-I set the charge pump in Mach 3 to enable
-I loaded the xml file to mach 3

Mach3 is asking me for "external estop requested", when I click on the Estop, the red fault light goes off. No green light appear though. Is this normal? Is there something wrong? Mach 3 doesn' t seem to see that I clicked my Estop, the request demand stays onscreen.

The next step after that is to make sure the green light is on and to connect the motors... where's my green light??

[jalessi]

Did you wire a switch between terminal 10 and 12 "ground"?

[phil m]

No

I'm not sure what that does exactly. Am I supposed to put the wire between the two for a few seconds then take it off and wire the box according to the schematic or something?

(Do I have to turn the power on with the wire between pin 10 and 12?)

[tumutbound]

The circuit diagram I have shows a normally closed e-stop switch between pins 10 and 12.
The notes state that a connection must be made between these 2 pins for the G540 to come out of fault mode.

[zeeway]

A normally closed E-stop switch is usually wired between pins 10 and 12, or more easily done between pin 10 and the ground on your power supply (not the neutral). Either wiriing to pin 12 or the power supply ground equates to the same thing because pin 12 is where the ground from your power supply is hooked up, right?

Okay, so if your E-stop is normally closed, and it has not been depressed (activated), it is making a connection from pin 10 to ground, telling the Gecko that it is okay to proceed. If the Gecko is happy, a green light will light up on the Gecko.

Oftentimes, I will start up my system with the E-stop activated and then release it to get the system ready.

Now, if you have not acquired an e-stop yet, just wire a jumper between pin 10 and 12; or pin 10 and the ground on your power supply; and leave it there. Start up the Gecko and the jumper will fool it into thinking it is seeing an unactivated E-stop. Clear?

[phil m]

Thanks for the reply guys. So if you look at the schematic I provided in my first post, does that mean there's an error on it? The Estop is not wired from pins 10 to 12 at all?

or does the enable switch do the same thing?

If I look at pins 10 and 12 on that schematic, pin 10 connects to an on/off switch then finishes at -VDC and pin 12 goes to -VDC too. Is there something I should change?

Please bear with me I don't know much about electronics, I can solder according to schematics though, have done that plenty of times.

[zeeway]

Okay, first a disclaimer - I'm not an electronics expert either. But I believe on the wiring diagram you posted, the "enable" switch is the same as an e-stop switch. Once you have closed this switch the system is "enabled", which is the same thing as having a normally closed e-stop. When you open the enable switch or activate the e-stop, the system cannot operate.

If you wire this as shown on your diagram, that is, from pin 10 on the gecko to the ground pin on your power supply, you have done the same thing as provide a jumper from pins 10 to 12 on the gecko. So if you wire that enable switch as shown, you do NOT need an additional jumper from pin 10 to 12. You will however, need to close the enable switch to enable the system to operate.

And one more thing - in addition to all this you still need a connection from gecko pin 12 to your power supply ground. That is why some writeups talk about an e-stop from 10 to 12, and others go from 10 to the power supply ground... Pin 12 on the gecko and the power supply ground are at the same voltage. So you can wire an enable (or e-stop) switch either to gecko pin 12 or to the power supply ground - for same effect. I found it easier to wire to the power supply ground because there was an open terminal (screw with no wire already there) so I could wire there more easily.

[phil m]

Cool but that switch finishes in the -VDC section not the AC/FG section (mains ground) should I physically move that wire to the ground section or is the schematic good in the first place?

[zeeway]

It may be the same, but that is beyond me. I wired mine to the -VDC terminal on the power supply (see additional comments I added above).

[phil m]

ok, I tried to rewire but that didn't work, so wired back according to schematic and at least the red light lights up. I fired up Mach 3 and get this when I lod the XML file

Sun - 07:57:01 ---Program Startup
Sun - 07:57:07 ---
Sun - 07:57:19 ---Command too longLine 0
Sun - 07:57:25 ---External EStop Requested.

Is "too longline 0" an error message maybe??

I click the enable switch but it doesn't seem to work, I don't get any other messages, I also tried to click the Estop too, also didn't work, I'm kinda stumped here

EDIT: I should pobably state that the red light turns off when I click the estop but when I switch the enable switch nothing happens, it stays red. I still haven't seen any green lights at this point.

[phomann]

Originally Posted by phil m Hey all, - I adjusted my printer port to EPP -I set the charge pump in Mach 3 to enable -I loaded the xml file to mach 3

You also need to go into the Mach3 general configuration and check the "ChargePump in EStop" checkbox.

If you don't do this you will get a race condition.

Cheers,

Peter.

[phil m]

I got a separate message from Peter Homann, the problem was the charge pump switch that was on the on position, I moved it to off and I now get my green light