[Eddie UK]

I have just taken delivery of a new X6 Plus linear and I am now on the steep learning curve using Mach3 for the first time.
I have had a few teething problems mainly down to a dodgy 25 pin socket at the mill end but now all seems to work ok except the spindle speed -
I program Mach S500 & the machine displays a speed of 700 ? I program S1500 & get 1430. I have trawled this forum for several days & not found the answer so forgive me if this has been covered before.
I have studied Mach3 spindle configurations but being a newbie I think all seems to be in order. I guess the big clue is that I get no spindle feedback to Mach. Please help.
Eddie

[iGG1e]

Sorry to hear of your problems. Makes you wonder if they take any notice of the complaints.

As far as I'm aware, Mach is totally open loop in axis and spindle control. This is why you can't do rigid tapping. I don't know if there is any calibration you can do, but it might end up with you doing a spreadsheet of demand/measured speed to use when programming your parts.

[mikemill]

Hi Eddie
The speed you see on the machine is the rpm of the motor, although Mach instructs the machine i.e. S1000 it goes through a PWM system ( Pulse Wave Modulation) where the electronics get a signal back from the motor then try to feed more or less volts to equal the selected speed. But all motors are not exactly the same so you get near enough, i.e. 950 / 1050 it is not a perfect system. On the motor control board are two pots where you can adjust your motor speed, but check with Syil first as they change the boards for each model.
I have a SX3 and have found it good value for the price, let me know how you get on.

Cheers
Mike

[Eddie UK]

Hi Mike & Igg1e,

Thank you for your prompt replies.

A spread sheet is a good idea but spending all this money I expect the thing to work out of the box, or is it me? I have emailed Syil China but so far no reply?

When I researched this machine I presumed that when the specs stated "spindle feedback to Mach3" that I would see the true speed the motor was doing in the Mach spindle speed window. I thought Mach would then be able to use this for calibration?

Mike, I have seen this two pot adjustment on another thread but unfortunately my motor control board doesn't look anything like the picture. I will check into it again & let you know. I have read as you say that somewhere near is acceptable but this X6 is way off S2000 produces 4200, I would be happy if it was within a couple of hundred revs.

Thanks again, Eddie

[M250cnc]

Eddie

Do you actually know what speed its running at.

Mach says 2000 you have S1000 but you need to measure with a tacho to know what it is.

Phil

Sent from my HTC Desire using Tapatalk

[Eddie UK]

That's a good point Phil. I was presuming that when I try the machine in manual mode the speed is correct or very near. The specs of my motor are 400 - 6000 rpm so when I turn the dial to max I get just a touch under 6000 on the display.
I guess I need to see which part of the equation is correct?
Thank you all for your patience.
Eddie

[mikemill]

Eddie
You are right, after spending thousands the machine it should work out of the box. Assuming you bought the machine from Amadeal ask Hugh to sort it out or ask for your money back.
Syil's early machines sufferd form bad wire crimps ,something so simple can drive you nuts, I don't know if they have improved!!!
Good luck
Mike

[Eddie UK]

Mike,
Yes, I bought it from Amadeal. Hugh has been good to deal with & was straight with me from the start explaining that he had little technical knowledge when it came to these machines & he has no engineering background. Thing is I have limited experience myself but couldn't buy elswhere so went with it. I have been using a Wabeco mill I bought second hand about four years ago. This came complete with software "pc lathe" a DOS system that is very basic, you draw an object on the screen, tell it how deep to cut & the machine does the rest. I desperately needed an upgrade but the Wabeco with a similar spec to the Syil X6 Linear was £11000.00 plus VAT, way out of reach.
I expected a few rough edges on the Chinese machine after reading other posts & decided that it was worth the risk. Most folks are happy with their Syil machines.
I am making parts now & a great deal quicker due to my quick change tooling system. I do like the machine.
My latest problem today is coolant leaking from the catchment tray & running down the stand onto the floor? Time to make that phone call I think?
Best regards
Eddie

[cjdavis618]

You can close the loop on the spindle speed and calibrate the speed to PWM but you must have some sort of input to Mach3 to determine speed vs actual speed.

Here is a Youtube video of the calibration that I did with the Sangmutan Motor and controller that I have. I believe the mill you have is the same motor but the 2200w model.

[nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFw2V2xDizM"]YouTube - Spindle Motor Calibration[/nomedia]

[Ed from NY]

IMHO $5-$10K is a very significant amount of money, but not enough to guarantee you will get a cnc mill without teething problems. If a 10% difference between set and actual RPMs is your biggest problem you are golden -- my personal opinion, of course.

BTW, the variance should be stable. For example, when you ask for 3200 you should consistently get 3500-3600 (replace by the specific number you get). That is, you should get predictive behavior. In general a 10% variance in RPMs, even if you do not compensate for it in your speeds and feeds, is not detrimental to milling or drilling, unless you were really on the edge.

Hope you can solve it though, cuz I have the same "feature"

EDIT: This is the card the guy mentions in the video which provides the spindle feedback.

http://www.cnc4pc.com/Store/osc/prod...roducts_id=129

Let us know if you figure a way to use it with the Syil electronics

EDIT 2: I think the inputs are maxed out on the Syil electronics, however, you could perhaps connect it temporarily in the probe input just to calibrate the spindle. Once that is done you connect that input to the probe again. The curve should be stored in Mach3, so perhaps that would work.

See http://cnc4pc.com/Tech_Docs/C3_to_C11G_Wiring.pdf

[mikemill]

Eddie

Yes Hugh is a very nice man, but selling a product comes with responcabilitys, also the mill has a one year waranty. Ask Hugh to contact Syil with the problem.
As we know Syil monitor this site, a message to you. Its all well and good to develop a new range of machine tools, but most of the problems reported to this forum relate to suspect electronics, spend more time developing relieable electronics first.
Thanks
Mike

[syil]

Eddie

Yes Hugh is a very nice man, but selling a product comes with responcabilitys, also the mill has a one year waranty. Ask Hugh to contact Syil with the problem.
As we know Syil monitor this site, a message to you. Its all well and good to develop a new range of machine tools, but most of the problems reported to this forum relate to suspect electronics, spend more time developing relieable electronics first.
Thanks
Mike

we have been get your emails,and will reply you at tomorrow.
syilchina.

[Eddie UK]

Thank you again for your replies. It never crossed my mind that this machine has a fault, everything works? I presumed that this was a calibration or settings issue. Due to my lack of experiance with Mach3 I simply thought a setting or pin in/out required a tick instead of a cross? Lets see what Syil China say tomorrow.
I have now listed the requested speeds against the actual mill display. I don't have a tac meter so still don't know how accurate these are .
S500 - 520 close enough.
S1000 - 800
S1500 - 1300
S2000 - 2140
S2500 - 2960
S3000 - 3760
S3500 - 4260
S4000 - 5120
S4500 - 5980 max speed
Regards Eddie, still confused!

[Ed from NY]

IMHO Mach3 should allow you to calibrate it manually instead of requiring a feedback input.

I could be mistaken, but I do not think you will ever get the RPM on the dot with a PWM system. May be if you calibrate it you will get it to 1-3%

[cjdavis618]

Correct, it would be nice to do this, but still the auto calibration is a very good way to correct major speed issues.

There may be a way in Mach 3 to do this, but when I made that calibration video, I was unable to find one. The c3 index card does help correct speed problems on the fly so it does have other benefits.

[Ed from NY]

These are good points.

I could be mistaken, but I think that if one has the 3 limit switches there is only one input left in the Syil board which is normally used for a probe/Z-axis zeroing. If that I so then the C3 could not really be used full time

[Eddie UK]

We are a lot closer now? Phil kindly gave me a call yesterday & gave me a few pointers. First problem was my pulley config, I read the specs 400 rpm min & 6000 max for my motor. I set the max to 5000 as a precaution, (thinking I would never cut at max speed) not realising that Mach uses these figures in the spindle speed equasion. Set it to 6000 & hey we have a speed within a couple of hundred revs. Some speeds are very close and most are near enough.
One strange observation though? when testing the speeds, I type into the Mach3 spindle speed box, then hit enter. The speed climes above the requested number but comes down somewhere near when I click on spindle reset? Works ok when running programs though so no worries.
Thanks to everone for your help.
Regards
Eddie

[M250cnc]

We are a lot closer now? Phil kindly gave me a call yesterday & gave me a few pointers. First problem was my pulley config, I read the specs 400 rpm min & 6000 max for my motor. I set the max to 5000 as a precaution, (thinking I would never cut at max speed) not realising that Mach uses these figures in the spindle speed equasion. Set it to 6000 & hey we have a speed within a couple of hundred revs. Some speeds are very close and most are near enough.
One strange observation though? when testing the speeds, I type into the Mach3 spindle speed box, then hit enter. The speed climes above the requested number but comes down somewhere near when I click on spindle reset? Works ok when running programs though so no worries.
Thanks to everone for your help.
Regards
Eddie

Hi Eddie

Glad you are almost there. There is a bug apparently when using Mach3 with PWM it is documented on page 3 of the member doc PWM Spindle Control as i said you must be logged in to view.

Phil

[PEU]

Thank you again for your replies. It never crossed my mind that this machine has a fault, everything works? I presumed that this was a calibration or settings issue. Due to my lack of experiance with Mach3 I simply thought a setting or pin in/out required a tick instead of a cross? Lets see what Syil China say tomorrow.
I have now listed the requested speeds against the actual mill display. I don't have a tac meter so still don't know how accurate these are .
S500 - 520 close enough.
S1000 - 800
S1500 - 1300
S2000 - 2140
S2500 - 2960
S3000 - 3760
S3500 - 4260
S4000 - 5120
S4500 - 5980 max speed
Regards Eddie, still confused!

There are two settings that need to be calibrated to get into the 10% error, yes, I can't make it better across all the speed ranges with the current spindle controller:

Check PWM value in port.pins>spindle tab, value there should be around 1000 give or take 300
Check spindle pulley setting in config, you should put 0 to max speed here, and if top speeds go way more faster than 10% of selected speed increase the top value by 10%.

These two settings always leaves me within acceptable values.

Good Luck!


Pablo