[jsantos]

Looks great Joe! Awesome work as usual. Is that aluminum planking from your old router?

Thanks! And yes, a lot of the aluminum extrusions came from my old router.

[jsantos]

I removed all traces of my old Mach3 just to make sure and installed the latest version. I also installed the latest plug-in of smoothstepper. Powered it on and run Mach3. Mach3 sees the ESS driver and I configured the Ethernet port. Mach3 cannot communicate with ESS. Checked all the connections, make sure that Mach3 and the smoothstepper configurator can go thru the Windows Firewall, and checked all the Ethernet settings. Nothing!

I got the ESS from Soigeneris so I emailed Jeff and told him the problems I'm having getting Mach3 to communicate with ESS.

In the meantime, I connected the DMM BOB directly to the printer port to test it. Also nothing. I have been able to make the motors work before using the DMM supplied software for testing and tuning the motors. But I cannot get the BOB to turn the motors. I called DMM and told them the problems I'm having. They told me that they will send me a new BOB.

Jeff got back to me in a couple of hours and told me to install an older version of Mach3 and also sent me the latest driver for ESS. He said that there are problems with the latest version of Mach3. Installed v.062 of Mach3 and the driver he sent me. Mach3 still couldn't communicate with the ESS. Emailed Jeff again and sent him screen prints of what I'm seeing. Got an email back saying to send back the ESS and he'll send me a new one. Because I'm in crunch mode now, I ordered another one instead and told him to credit my card when he receives the old one.

Just for the heck of it, I tried running the DMM BOB again using the older version of Mach3. To my surprise, it worked! I called DMM to tell them now to ship a new BOB because I have my BOB working. I explained to them that using an older version of Mach3 did the trick.

A couple of days later (today), I got the new ESS (Thanks Jeff for the quick response!). I removed the old one and installed the new one. Wonder of wonders! The thing works! Mach3 sees the ESS and can communicate with it.

Next, I hooked up the ESS to the DMM BOB. By now, I've installed 3 motors on my CNC so I only have one motor left that I can use for testing. Loaded Mach3 and tried running the motor. It runs! And then all of a sudden, it stopped and a light on my servo driver turned on, indicating a fault. Turned everything off and on again. The same thing. Moved the motor to another driver - same thing.

I called DMM and they said the light indicates a motor failure. They asked me to return the motor and they will replace/repair it. It's a brand new motor. They should replace it. We'll see what they do.

I still have 3 other motors left so I should still be able to continue putting together my CNC. That is, assuming that the 3 motors continue to work.

And to think that everything has gone very smoothly until now. Sigh...

[jsantos]

Started installing the cables and found out that the cables were too short. Arrrggghhh.

Had to order longer cables from DMM Tech. They were good enough to ship it immediately.

Having to change my cables, took down the motors to do some more testing and start looking at motor tuning. In the course of testing, one of the drivers started acting up. Turned off the controller and turned back on again. This time, the status light on the driver did not even come on. :-(

To make matters worse, my DMM BOB does not seem to work anymore. I used to hear the charge pump relay turn on and off and I also get power to my limit switches. Now, I don't hear the charge pump relay turn on at all and I don't get power to my limit switches. I wish the DMM BOB have some status LEDS on them.

I'm now trying to get hold of DMM to at least get them to ship a BOB to me. I still have 3 working drivers so I can at least get my CNC up and running.

I've done our Woodworkers' Guild trophies for the past 3 years on my old CNC and was supposed to do it again this year, thinking that I will have my CNC up and running in time. But now I'm running out of time. :-(

[jsantos]

I finally got hold of DMM Tech and told them the problems I'm having. They asked me to return the BOB and the offending driver and said they will send me a new BOB right away. A few hours later, I got a notification from their shipping company that I have a package coming! Now that's what I call service! Thanks DMM Tech! I must say that I have been very impressed with their support. And their patience because I have asked some pretty dumb questions!

Since I'm really motivated to get my CNC up and running so I decided to give it one more try and figure out what's happening to my BOB and one of my drivers. Checked out all the wiring connections and measured voltages at the terminal blocks. All checked out. I then removed the driver that I was having problems with. All of a sudden, the BOB came to life! Hooray! Forget the problem driver. I'm installing this on my CNC!

Even though my cables are short, I decided to hook them up to my CNC anyway. I won't have a lot of slack on my z-axis but I can move the controller close enough so I can make the short cables work. Finally completed the wiring. Turned the controller on, start up Mach3 and lo and behold, Mach3 has control of the system!

Jog the x-axis. She moves! Jog it the other way. It did not go the other way! Brought up the DMM software to look at my driver settings and the x-axis was set to CW/CCW instead of Pulse/Direction. Change that and try again. She moves backward and forward! Try the y-axis. She works! Try the z-axis. She really works! I'm very pleasantly surprise how smoothly the machine moves. The motors, though, seem a little too noisy. That might be a matter of tuning.

Another thing I did noticed is that I will still have to stiffen up my x-axis support. While the support itself is not flexing, the 80/20 1530 that it's attached to is flexing when I start and stop the jogging very quickly. I'll get some 3030 from the local surplus store and see if that helps. In the meantime, I'll look at tuning the servos. DMM has some very nice write-up/calculation on tuning their servos. I'll find out how good they are.

[jsantos]

Haven't had time to post progress until now.

I had the chance to try the tuning calculations that DMM Tech provides in their manual. Tried it and didn't get very good results. The motors run very rough, much rougher than default tuning settings. I sent DMM an email asking about it and haven't gotten a response from them.

To make matters worse, I lost another drive. This is not looking good.

Since I couldn't do anything with 2 drives, I had to make other arrangements to get the trophies for our woodworking guild done. I returned the 2 drives to DMM Tech about a week and a half ago. To date, they have not received them. While I sent them via UPS, the shipment was apparently assigned by DMM Tech for their broker to pick up. So far, the broker has not picked up the drives to deliver to DMM Tech. Shipping to and from Canada is really, really slow. This is something that people should consider if they intend to use DMM Tech components.

A request to DMM Tech to ship another drive so I can continue with my work went unanswered, leading to more frustration on my part. Since they're very good at answering phone calls, I'll give them a call tomorrow to find out what's happening.

[jsantos]

It took close to 4 weeks to send my bad drivers back to DMM Tech and to get them back. I got them early this week and installed them. I got the same drivers back. It looks like they fixed the drivers instead of replacing them. I installed them yesterday and one of them was still bad! I took my other driver (was going to be for my A-axis) and used that instead. Now, I can move my machine in all 3 axis. But now I have to wait another 4 weeks to ship my bad driver and get it back. :-(

Although DMM Tech support has been outstanding, several emails to them on tuning have gone unanswered. The documentation that they provide does not help at all. It is inconsistent with what you see on the tuning software that DMM provides. After several trial and errors, I was finally able to get all 3-axis moving smoothly at about 10,000 mm/min (400 ipm). It looks like I can still go faster but I'll have to look at bolting the machine to my wall first.

Now, on to the next problem. I've set up 2 hall effect sensors at each end of my axis for home/limit switches. When I tried homing, Mach3 stopped homing when it detected the home/limit switch for my z-axis and said that the limit switch was triggered??? I thought that Mach3 ignores the limit switch when homing? Or does this have something to do with Gerry's screenset (doubtful) or possibly ESS? I turned off the limits and tried homing again. This time, the z-axis stopped when it detected the home/limit switch, went to the y-axis and then the x-axis. But this time, Mach3 did not back off the home switches!!! So at the end of the homing, the machine is sitting where it detected the home switches, the axes DROs set to 0 and all my sensors' LED were lit! I also tried setting the debounce to 2000 and it did not help. Anybody got any ideas?

I'm so close and yet still so far. :-(

[ger21]

How do you have the switches configured in Mach3?
As a test, set the debounce to 15000 and see if it helps. However, I'm not sure if the SS uses the debounce setting, or if it has it's own settings?
It's possible that noise is triggering the limits after homing.
First thing I'd do is disable everything but one home switch, and get that working first. Then add one more switch, and get that working. repeat until everything works.

The screenset has nothing to do with homing issues. It uses the same method as the standard screens. (All screensets do, as there's only one way to home in Mach3).

[tahustvedt]

One of my homing switches (Z) will trigger a limit occasionally when I home, but only when homing that particular switch. It's a different type of switch than the other switches because it needs to be smaller to fit inside the Z-axis. I attribute the false limit trigger to switch bounce or something similar happening in the switch.

[jsantos]

I'm using shielded wire for my limit switches so I was doubtful that it was noise causing the problem. But when I looked at the diagnostic screen, my limit switches (all of them) were flickering when the axes came close to the limit. What??? Taking a close look at the sensors, I can also see the LEDs on them flickering.

I then disabled the limit switches and moved the axes so that the magnets were on top of the sensors. The flickering stopped. Next, I moved the magnet off the sensor and stepped jog back until I see the sensor light up on the diagnostic. The light on the diagnostic screen is flickering. It looks like the limit switch is triggered as soon as the magnet is just on the cusp of being detected by the sensor but not close enough that the sensor is turning on and off.

Doing a search on this problem, it looks like this really happens with hall effect sensors. I'm surprised that nobody has run into this when people were working with these sensors with RomanLini sometime back in the "Electronic Sensors Made Easy" thread. They now have sensors with Schmitt triggers in them to prevent this from happening. I know the sensor I'm using (Hamlin) does not have this. Looks like I'll have to get the ones with the Schmitt triggers and make new limit switches.

Is there a way to turn off the limit switches in Mach3 during the homing process and then turn them back on after the process is completed?

[ger21]

Perhaps a weaker magnet might help????

I made my own from Roman's design and I don't have this issue. I use a very weak strip magnet that needs to be very close to the sensor. But I'm not sure that magnet strength is really the issue.

If a switch is used as both a home and limit switch, the limit is disabled when homing. I think you're issue is that the limit is triggering after homing.

Try grounding your shields at the opposite ends, or both ends, and see if that helps?

[jsantos]

Perhaps a weaker magnet might help????

I made my own from Roman's design and I don't have this issue. I use a very weak strip magnet that needs to be very close to the sensor. But I'm not sure that magnet strength is really the issue.

If a switch is used as both a home and limit switch, the limit is disabled when homing. I think you're issue is that the limit is triggering after homing.

Try grounding your shields at the opposite ends, or both ends, and see if that helps?

I was too lazy to make Roman's design and bought the ready-made Hamlin ones instead. I ordered some sensors with the Schmitt triggers and I will end up having make the sensors myself after all. Lesson learned.

I think you're right that the limit is triggered after homing. That's why I want to disable them during the process. When I turned off the limit switches in Mach3, I was able to home all 3 axis. But all 3 axis did not back off the sensors. Again, this is probably because the sensors are turning on and off. So until I get my new sensors made, I'd like to be able to home doing the following:

1. Turn off limit switches
2. Home (which never backs off the sensors)
3. Issue g-code to back off sensors
4. Turn on limit switches.

I don't want to run the machine without limit switches as my motors are powerful enough to do serious damage to the machine. I've got the software limits set but they seem to turn themselves off once in a while in my old machine.

[Vogavt]

Perhaps a weaker magnet might help????

Friend of mine was over saturating a sensor with too strong of a magnet.
Went with a weaker one and problem was solved.
If you don't have a weaker magnet, see if you can get some distance apart instead.

[jsantos]

After scrounging around the house, I found a couple of pretty weak magnets. Still the same problem.

I went over the Electronic Switching Made Easy thread (that has grown by leaps and bounds since I last read it) and it looks like ClaytonC had the same problem I'm having with the exactly same Hamlin sensor. Unfortunately, he seems to have disappeared from the thread and has not said whether he solved his problem or not. I'm building new sensors as soon as the parts get here.

In the meantime, I heard back from DMM Tech and they suggested that I use 110V instead of 220V for powering my drivers. They said that I should still get about the same motor RPM and about the same torque. Why didn't they have that in their documentation?!? Also, these drivers are rated at 110v and 220v so I would prefer to use 220v as they're more efficient. Also, my 110v uses an arc fault interrupt circuit that seems to trip every time I have more than one power tool running on it.

[ger21]

I think you're right that the limit is triggered after homing. That's why I want to disable them during the process.

They ARE disabled during the process. Unfortunately, as soon as they are re-enabled is when you seem to have the issue.
I looked around for about an hour, and there doesn't appear to be any way to disable the limits.

2. Home (which never backs off the sensors)

I believe that they do back off, but the limit gets triggered immediately. Or, since you said they were flickering, Mach3 thinks the switch was triggered, and then backed off, before it actually should have even been triggered. The homing process is most likely completing, but the noise makes it looks like it's not.

[jsantos]

Thanks, Gerry! I did a search for disabling limit switches too and didn't find anything either. I was hoping that you'd have the answer off the top of your head. :-)

On a more positive note, I was able to jog the machine at about 700 ipm with no problem, unless you consider the machine walking a problem. :-) I will definitely have to bolt this one to the wall. Since the wall I'm attaching this to is a stud wall that's nailed to a concrete wall, I just hope it doesn't tear the stud wall away from the concrete wall.

Now to check out my probe and attach my spindle.

[jsantos]

Attaching the probe and setting the pins for it went without a hitch. I haven't tried Gerry's probing routines yet, though. But at this point, I'm assuming that will work without a problem.

The spindle was another matter. As soon as a wired in the spindle, the spindle started running as soon as I turn on the controller! Then it turned off when I started Mach3. What??? Just for grins, I exited Mach3 and the spindle started running again! I disconnected the smoothstepper from the DMM Tech BOB and started the controller again to see what happens. The spindle started running as soon as I turn on the controller again. Doing a search on the problem, I found a post in the Warp9 forum where this has happened to another guy. Apparently, the problem is with the BOB. I agree, since the spindle starts when the smoothstepper is not connected to the BOB.

This is a very dangerous situation. I emailed DMM Tech about the problem and am waiting to hear back from them.

Working on the spindle speed controller, I fiddled with the Mach3 and the ESS controls to get Mach3 to control the spindle speed. For some reason or another, the spindle speed wouldn't change when I try to change it in Mach3. Then, for no apparent reason, the spindle started spinning up! Do a search on the problem again. This time, I found the answer in the Mach3 forum. Greg of Warp9 walked somebody thru the problem on how to set up the spindle. I had to set up the spindle in the motor tuning section in Mach3. I never had to do this before on my old machine.

I wish that this type of documentation is included in the manual instead of one having to search the internet to find the answers. It just so happened that I run into one of Gerry's posts that mentioned the CSMIO motion control system. What a nice set-up - 24V system, DIN rail mountable and phoenix connectors! And what documentation! This is the best documentation that I have seen on any controller/BOB. I ended up reading the manual from beginning to end. I am planning to do a conversion of my CNC mill. Now I know what controller I will use. But first, I have to finish this project. :-(

[ger21]

You should never turn on power before Mach3 is running. Ideally, you should'nt be able to turn power on before Mach3 is running.

[jsantos]

You should never turn on power before Mach3 is running. Ideally, you should'nt be able to turn power on before Mach3 is running.

If I don't turn the controller on, then Mach3 complains that it cannot find the ESS when it runs.

I've got the charge pump turned on and the DMM Tech BOB even has a charge pump relay in it and it seems to use the charge pump to enable the servo drivers. I would have expected that the BOB would not turn anything on until after it sees the charge pump.

[ger21]

The ESS should get power when the PC turns on, but the motor power supply should not be on until Mach3 and the ESS are communicating.

[jsantos]

The ESS should get power when the PC turns on, but the motor power supply should not be on until Mach3 and the ESS are communicating.

How do I do this?