Mach3 Fault when Drive faults.

[Ark1]

I am new to Mach3 and have encountered when the drives are set up with too much acceleration missed steps occur with the servo encoder. What happens is that Mach3 now Zero's the offending axis and continues the loaded program well beyond the extents of the machine.

I have adjusted down the acceleration and max speed for each drive to prevent this, but would like Mach3 to hault the Mill when a servo encoder error happens.

Where is this in the program? What is it called so that I can look for it?

Thanks.


Ark1

TonyK.

[ger21]

You need you're servo drives to send a signal to Mach3 telling it to stop. You probably want to use the Estop pin, so that when the drives fault, Mach3 goes into E Stop.

[Ark1]

I will have to look and see if the Gecko 320X has an output that will change the Estop status.

Too bad each drive doesn't have an open set of contacts as the 4 axis on the Break Out board isn't being used and I have a spare limit switch input on the BOB.

Thanks for the direction to look, I will dig into my Servo Drive manual.

Ark1

TonyK.

[ger21]

Alan's Gecko 320 circuits

[Ark1]

Gerry thank you very much.

This is impressive with a very well put together manual with Drawings and suggested installation.

Try and find that with the Sound Lodgic Break Out Board.


A little more reading and I should be able to place my order in US Dollars, even a better bargan now that the Canadian dollar is worth more than the US Dollar.

On the down side, I will have to modify my drawings again for my machine.


Ark1

TonyK.

[Ark1]

I tried to find this site to place an order and I am coming up blank.

I supose I could just leave the error reset open and purchase a set of 3 N/O contacts for a push button on the control cabinet to reset the drives when they fault. I suspect that this would only hault the offending axis and still leave me with a mess on my hands with the other 2 axis driving.

Do you have any other suggestions?


Thanks.

Ark1

TonyK.

[ger21]

Try here.
are ELECTRONICS Co.

[Ark1]

Thank you for the reply.

I spent over an hour reading the manual that I printed off and this would work nicely for my requirement.

I am waiting for the reply from the company.

Ark1

TonyK.

[Ark1]

I received a Prompt reply from Allen Rothenbush and he stated the following.

Yes, I think the basic GERC will do what you want.

Basically, the GERC will monitor an EStop input in the form of a NORMALLY CLOSED switch and monitor the Gecko Error/Reset pin(s).

Should something bad happen, either the EStop switch opens or one of the four the Error/Reset inputs signals an error, the GERC will toggle a relay, put the Geckos into RESET and keep them there.


I should note here that all recent Geckos (those built in the last 3 or 4 years) are supposed to do this latter thing all on their own. That is, there is supposed to be a way to wire them up (all by themselves) such that if one goes into error mode, it will put the others into error mode as well.

Now, I've never tried this, I've always just used a GERC but you may not need the GERC to do what you want ...


Alan




So I studied the Gecko 320X manual and it appears that he is correct, but I didn't know if I could interconnect the each drive or had to use separate relays with the relay contacts placed in series with the EPO circuit to halt the machine.

I emailed Marcus Freimanis from Gecko Drive and he stated the following.

Tony,

The ERROR/RESET pin from the drives can be daisy chained, meaning if one of them goes into a FAULT state it will drag them all into a FAULT state.

Please let me know if you have any more questions. Thank you!

Marcus Freimanis
Geckodrive, Inc.
14662 Franklin Ave.
Suite E
Tustin, CA 92780


So according the manual the Error reset terminal or pin is an input/output pin and can be used to drive a 5 volt relay. A reset button is required to take the drives out of fault.

Although this setup will not indicate what drive is at fault, by opening the cabinet door and running the machine again through the program I should be able to see what light comes on with the drive missing steps.

As they say Back to the Drawing Board.

Ark1

TonyK.