ESS Smoothstepper and spindle control ISSUE! Help needed
Right..
To start I’m using warp9 ess smoothstepper rev3
So i recently added a ESS smoothstepper to my system.. not without its issues.. but getting there now however the issue i have is as follows:
Spindle control...
I changed no settings when adding my ESS to my system. But now have poor spindle control and index feedback.
No matter what i try i cannot get the spindle to run a constant speed it fluctuates up and down when turned on in either direction (m3/m4) and the faster the spindle runs the more it fluctuates that much that if you try to run spindle calibration it gets to around 500rpm and then stalls calibration software due to that much fluctuation in speed and it not being able to stablise it.
The index disk i have has 1 slot which is approx 10mm wide
with the debounce interval and index debounce in general config what should i set these to? or are these not used with the ESS config noise filtering option being used instead?
Re: ESS Smoothstepper and spindle control ISSUE! Help needed
Hi,
I use Mach4 and an ESS, and its been seven years since I used Mach3 and so the details may be a bit rusty.
Firstly the ESS does offer PID control of spindle speed via it PWM output, but it limited to Mach4, May I suggest you enquire directly from Andy at the Warp9 forum
to confirm.
The slotted encoder wheel looks fine, and Mach3 should be able to 'count the pulses' and thereby calculate the actual spindle speed very accurately. What it cannot do
though is adjust the spindle speed to some target value by adjusting the PWM. You might reasonably ask 'why bother with the encoder?'. The encoder output is essential
if you require an exact estimate of spindle speed and position for single point lathe threading.
Second issue, and this is where my uncertainty about Mach3 should be kept in mind is that it cannot support PMW frequencies of 32kHz. I think you should try a PWM frequency
of 500Hz-1000Hz. I recall the explanation was given that Mach was limited to a minimum pulse width of 40us, ie equivalent to 25kHz. Thus with a PWM frequency of 1000Hz Mach
could produce a PWM voltage in 25 steps for 0V to Vmax. If you have the PMW frequency set to 12.5kHz the Mach could produce a PWM voltage in only two steps,
say 0V, 0.5*Vmax and Vmax, really not that useful.