Adding second Estop pin/port?

[Will_H]

I have a panel mounted Estop switch on the controller and another one on the mill, because one is a duplicate of the other they are both normally closed switches that sink the input for the estop pin to ground.

This does not work because the switches are effectively wired in parallel with this arrangement, both switches need to be tripped to open the circuit that Mach sees as the pin signal.

The existing wiring harness does not have a spare conductor to provide a return path, so I cannot simply rewire the estop switches to be in series.

As I see it, I have two options:

1) Add two NPN transistors to make an AND gate inside the panel (extra parts/wiring in the panel that I would like to avoid)

OR

2) Move the wire from one of the switches to an unused pin and configure that as a second estop in Mach3 (the elegant/clean solution)

I'm not sure how to tell mach3 that the new input is an estop, I imagine there is some sort of OEM code for estop and some way to trigger it from the input pin/switch, but I can't find it in my documentation.

Can anyone more familiar with Mach3 help me out by explaining how to do this? I am really poking around in the dark here because I have not really delved into Mach3 programming other than writing a really simple macro for activating an annunciator and flasher once.

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[ger21]

Use a Brain, that triggers an Estop when the Input is triggered.

[john-100]

with only one E-stop input an "OR" gate made from a couple of relays , opto-isolators or transistors would be a simple solution

are you using a breakout board connected to a PC's parallel printer port ?
details / photos of the hardware will help

John

PS



note -

using the 2 relays or 2 opto-isolators have the advantage of isolating the machine GND from the printerport GND

[dharmic]

Can you re-wire them in series?

[john-100]

dharmic

I have to admit I initially missed this from the original post

"The existing wiring harness does not have a spare conductor to provide a return path, so I cannot simply rewire the estop switches to be in series "


I would want to run extra wires to connect the E-stop switches in series
not knowing the machine I guess there must be a good reason why Will_H is looking for another solution

John

[dharmic]

Lol same here, apologies: gotta learn to not hit the post button before my second coffee in the morning!

[Will_H]

Use a Brain, that triggers an Estop when the Input is triggered.

This sounds like what I need to do, I just found a Youtube video tutorial on a "Brain" so I will try to figure it out from there, THANKS!

Aim to check out your screenset also, looks interesting.

[Will_H]

with only one E-stop input an "OR" gate made from a couple of relays , opto-isolators or transistors would be a simple solution

are you using a breakout board connected to a PC's parallel printer port ?
details / photos of the hardware will help

John

PS



note -

using the 2 relays or 2 opto-isolators have the advantage of isolating the machine GND from the printerport GND

Hi John;
I think Gerry hit on what I am trying to do, but it looks like you have put some thought and some efort into trying to answer my question, which I am very grateful for. If a hardware solution turns out to be necessary- and I think I can avoid that- then I will refer to the schematic you so graciously provided.

To answer the other questions, it's a homebuilt control for an RF-30 clone mill, from the control wires run out to each motor, they are clad in armorflex. There is a 12 conductor umbilical betweeen the control box and a remote box on the back of the mill, this remote box accepts plug-in connections for limits, a probe input, flood and mist outputs controlled by SSRs in the remote box, and the estop.. Two conductors that I am trying to reserve (hence not wiring thew switches in series) carry two outputs that currently mirror an annunciator and a flasher on the main control- I wrote a macro for these so the machine will beep five times on a tool change or end of program, and the flasher will activate. Because I have had parts finish and realized 20 minutes later when I was only a few yards away distracted by something else.I would like to set it up to send me a text actually, for semi lights-out machining, my 3D printer does this (Formlabs Form2) .

I bought my mill from a company that made locks back in 2006, it was running off a 80486 PC using some odd proprietary card I could not figure out so I converted to gecko drives in the original enclosure behind the mill- which was compact but everything was nested so tight it was a PITA to do the inevitable maintenance and troubleshooting. The control PC was inside the mill base.

Last year I built an all new controller to house the PC and a 48v 39A power supply from a big SGI server, plus a smoothstepper and 4 axis setup using Geckos with the Simple Motherboard for the Geckos.I found a Rittal enclosure cheap on eBay to put it all into and added a pendant that magnetically snaps into a recess on the front of the unit so it functions as a panel mount controller that can be pulled out and used as a wireless pendant. Works well- I will try to load up some pics of the setup if you are curious about it- I'm curious about what EVERYONE else is doing, so I get it!

[Will_H]

Pics:

[Will_H]

The remote box (behind the mill column):

[CitizenOfDreams]

I vote for john-100's solution with two relays. It is probably the most robust way to handle this (if adding another wire to the harness is out of question).