[outctrl]

the operators are telling me that the spindle use to turn on in jog mode by picking direction and pushing the increase pushbutton. it will jog, but i can not get this to turn on. the machine is a T42 with a Fanuc 18T control. any help will be appreciated.thanks

[txcncman]

I do not think your operators are correct. Been a few years, but if I recall correctly, you can go to MDI and turn spindle on by commanding a speed and direction and press cycle start. Then you can switch to manual mode and the spindle will stay on. Then you can press spindle stop and start as needed from there.

[JeepinDoug]

Select JOG mode.
Push and hold the JOG spindle button and the spindle will rotate at 50rpms or so. The JOG spindle button needs to be held down and only runs while being held.
Or also in JOG mode;
Press CW or CCW and then increase to rpms desired up to 1000rpms, from there decrease to desired. Press both increase and decrease together to stop the spindle.
In MDI mode input M3 s100 (EOB) (input) cycle start. This will start the spindle at 100 rpms in CW (IIRC.)