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Thank you CR, yes I'm trying to use the switch for squaring up my Y axis.
Well you COULD wire the switches in series, but Normally Open. That way BOTH switches would have to close before Mach would get a home signal, but it still wouldn't work. Mach wouldn't detect the out-of-square, it would just keep traveling until both switches closed.Originally Posted by 15mgtar
You will be much better served by checking a pair of prominent home reference marks daily.
CR.
http://crevicereamer.com
Too many PMs. Email me to my name plus At A O L dot com.
Well, I got 6 limit switches all wired up in series, with 3 of those doing double duty as home switches. It is pretty cool to watch the machine home.
On occasion, I get Mach3 saying that a limit switch had triggered when it hadn't. I did use shielded cable for wiring those, but I did not put a pull up resistor on that parallel port pin. When I checked, all of the input pins were already at +5V. Would it help to add those in, or is my problem likely elsewhere? My stepper motors are not wired with shielded cable, so maybe that is the problem.
I received my E-Stop switch but hadn't had a chance to wire it in yet. It looks the exact same as CR's photos.
Why don't you go to the switch in question (or perhaps all of them) and put an LED in series with a resistor across the switch contacts. That's a good way to troubleshoot.
You could possibly have a bad switch.
Tom
Since they are all wired in series, I would think it would be hard to troubleshoot the switches individually. As soon as Mach3 stops, a check of the diagnostics screen doesn't show any of the limits active (that is all or nothing anyways, since they are in series). It is not very frequent of a problem, fortunately, but it is a bit of an annoyance.
It bugs me when people answer questions seeming to be "In the know," when in reality they don't. Sherline might not have an E-stop in their system, but EMC2 has an E-stop available on any PP pin by just assigning that in the stepper config utility. EMC2 isn't hard, it's just different. Once past the "Virgin jitters" installing, configuring and using EMC2 is actually EASY. How do I know this? I actually took a little time to try it. Of course the CD sat on my desk for nine months without an attempt because I knew it was going to be eye tooth pulling hard. The first time for a full install of Ubuntu and EMC2 with setting up the stepper config took 42 minutes. My next time took under 15. You can't even install Windows in 15 minutes.
Well, EMC2 certainly does have an input for eStop. However, my Sherline driver controller (and access to the parallel port pins) is in a sealed box, which is still under warranty. Sherline tech support assures me that opening the box to install an eStop switch will invalidate the warranty. As I still have unresolved driver issues, I'm not willing to invalidate the warranty.
Also, the Sherline package uses the "mini" user interface for EMC2. I talked to the EMC2 developers last week, in person, and they seemed to think that the code for eStop is not installed in the Sherline package, but no one could verify this.
You may note that the EMC2 docs show an "example" of hooking up the eStop button to parallel port pin 1. This in itself will not work, as pin 01 is an output pin. The five input pins are pin 10, pin 11, pin 12, pin 13, and pin 15.
YMMV
Tom
You may want to rethink on this.
Certainly hook up the eStop to one of the input pins, 10, 11, 12, 13, and 15, and tell Mach3 that you have done so. And you could hook up the eStop signal to one of the limit switch inputs, but with a diode to prevent the limit switch from sending the limit switch signal to the eStop pin.
But you might want to keep your limit switches wired to the specific terminals on the driver, as the limit switch seems to be a hardware function on your driver board. But one interesting question remains: If you hit a limit switch and the driver board stops all the steppers, does it tell the parallel port that this has taken place? The text in the manual leads me to believe that it doesn't. But, it's really not clear.
You might want to put your voltmeter across the port ground and then each of the pins in sequence, and run the travel into the appropriate limit switch. If the voltage on that pin drops to near zero, then the driver is sending the limit switch message to the parallel port. You then need to tell Mach3 that the limit switch signal is available on that input pin.
OTOH, if it's not sending the signal, you can tell Mach3 that there is no limit switch input.
Tom
Well, it looks like this will be a moot point anyway. I've tried two controller boards from the same manufacturer and both of them have had intermittent issues with the Z head dropping all the way down. So, I will be looking for a different controller. I'm looking at the Gecko G540 as I have read lots of good feedback on it. The G540 has a terminal for an E-Stop button to disable the hardware side of things. If I am reading their documentation right, that also looks to send a fault signal to software on Pin 15 of the parallel port.
I'm using Gecko 203V's, on a larger installation. And there is lots of fast support from the factory in the Gecko forum.
I predict that you'll be much happier with the G540 than with the Chinese(?) driver.
Tom
I have read that there is good support for them. That is an added plus.
Actually, it looks to be a Canadian made board.
Well, changing driver boards will mean that I will be putting together my own controller unit. It is the whole controller unit that is being returned, so I will need an enclosure, power supply, and connectors in addition to the driver board. I'm starting to get a list of the parts together. I saw some completed controllers available with the G540, but they seemed a bit pricey.
pmdx has just added motor connectors to their product line. Best price I've seen anywhere, by a long shot.
Tom
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