[boydage]

I dont have much success, and after spending years on the build of my own machine, upgrade after upgrade. Going from Mach 3 to the ESS Mach 4 has been a downgrade in the probing routine. Ive posted on the ESS Forum but no answers or robust troubleshooting advice unfortunately.

Im not a novice but also dont know a lot. I use the Mach 4 Touch Module. And it works about 50% of the time. The remainder of the time the ESS puts my machine into EStop with no reason why. I end up spending more time trying to setup a WCS than the actual machining. Stupid really tbh.

So most times, the probe will strike, pause, and either back off with a success, or, it will Estop. Every single time the probe strikes I see an indication on the screen. Originally I thought it might be noise so I have increased the debounce to 250 but still its very unreliable.

All of my cables are shielded and the shield earthed at one end only to avoid the ground loop.

When it works it works fine.

I was wondering if its a computer hardware problem possibly??? As I understand it, the probe strikes, reports position, then returns. Is this possible whats going on with mine its having trouble "reporting"?? I am so much at a loss I am grabbing at straws to resolve this quite horrible problem when I only want my machine to work properly like I built it. Software, I dont know much about.

Please help. I do have about 100 logs of failed probing routines but cant make any sense of them. Perhaps I ditch the ESS and get something with better results or perhaps its my own build, although it was fantastic with Mach 3.... I need to be able to probe. I need help please.

[joeavaerage]

Hi,
I make circuit boards with Mach4/ESS on my mill and I probe the surface prior to each PCB, I must probe thousands of times a month, without fail and I've done so for years.

Craig

[boydage]

Hi,
I make circuit boards with Mach4/ESS on my mill and I probe the surface prior to each PCB, I must probe thousands of times a month, without fail and I've done so for years.

Craig

Hi Craig,

Care to share how you have wired it in? Or what you may have done differently? Ive got mine going straight into one of the five 817 Optocoupler inouts into a standard Chinese BOB. The very same operated fine with Mach 3. Now the ESS decides to put my machine into Estop about 50% of the time. Either before a strike (not as common), or just after its backed off - most times. Its such a simple circuit I am a bit stumped. I even wondered about adding in an additional Opto circuit to isolate the isolation.

May sound silly but reaching long and hard for straws or just anything to get this resolved its such a massive waste of time, especially when I want to probe, and machine. Rgds

[Rubes]

I would suspect that if it works sometimes, your connection is probably ok. I have run into alot of instances with Mach4 that works once, then not the next time, then ok again later or after restarting. Really stupid, as you noted.
as far as probing...I have had similar early on, but it seems to work good now. I played around with the "prep distance" , "retract distance" and "probe speed) on that touch panel. for instance if your "prep distance" is set to .25" and you eyeball your probe to your start position and it happens to be .26" the probe may or may-not make contact or barely contact. the next time you eyeball the start position you may be at .24" so it would work fine. But you do say you see a strike indication every time. Is it possible your probe feed rate is fast enough that the probe deflects more than the "retract distance". You would want those distances to be as short as possible to not waste time moving too far away from the part, but still far enough to make sure the probe opens and closes solidly.
For troubleshooting, I would say make your distances pretty large (ie prep=1" and retract=0.2") and slow down your probe feed rate (prep feed rate shouldn't matter). then make sure you place your probe closer than 1" from the edge before hitting the button. Then start tweaking those distances smaller and speeds faster.
I also note that the touch panel probing cycles just do a single hit, unlike the cycles on the probe tab, that do the double strike.

[joeavaerage]

Hi,
My probe input is just a general purpose active low (sinking) input. It is not optoisolated or anything.
I have shown a small section of the circuit diagram of the inputs of my own home-brew breakout board. I have also redrawn just one input to show how basic it is.

As basic as it is I've used this same non isolated input arrangement for over ten years, first with Mach3 and for the last eight years with Mach4. I have probed tens if not hundreds of thousands
of times with it.

Craig

[Rubes]

this guy seems to have had the exact same problem as you...probing worked fine with Mach3 but not with Mach4. He did some rearanging in his control cabinet to eliminate the issue.
https://www.machsupport.com/forum/in...?topic=42086.0

[joeavaerage]

Hi,
that guy had not set up the ESS correctly.

Imagine this move:

g31 z-5 f100

The probe will moves until it touches something OR it comes to the end of the move at z=-5mm. The ESS regards a g31 that DOES NOT touch something is a fault, it signals it and stops.
There is an alternative, where you can set the ESS to not fault out.

The probing module in Mach will often need to have the probe traverse from one location to the next. You could program that using either g1 or g0 moves....but what happens if there is something
in the way? The probe will be destroyed. So the programmers used g31 moves to traverse. This would mean if the probe accidently touched something on its way to the next probe location it would
stop and save the probe from being destroyed. Very clever. But it also means that Mach is entirely expecting many of its g31 moves to result in NO PROBE CONTACT. But this would cause the ESS to fault.

Craig

[boydage]

Hi,
that guy had not set up the ESS correctly.

Imagine this move:

g31 z-5 f100

The probe will moves until it touches something OR it comes to the end of the move at z=-5mm. The ESS regards a g31 that DOES NOT touch something is a fault, it signals it and stops.
There is an alternative, where you can set the ESS to not fault out.

The probing module in Mach will often need to have the probe traverse from one location to the next. You could program that using either g1 or g0 moves....but what happens if there is something
in the way? The probe will be destroyed. So the programmers used g31 moves to traverse. This would mean if the probe accidently touched something on its way to the next probe location it would
stop and save the probe from being destroyed. Very clever. But it also means that Mach is entirely expecting many of its g31 moves to result in NO PROBE CONTACT. But this would cause the ESS to fault.

Craig

Ok this had made me think a bit - good robust conversation. So on my own machine that check box is unchecked. And I beleive I did that so I could probe the top/corner operation successfully. I was unable to work out why I needed to do this. So to clarify, a corner probe operation is a 3 part probe with the corresponding moves to position. Its these positioning moves where my machine used to go into Estop. Is it correct then that the positioning moves are also G31 and when during those moves the ESS does not see a strike and errors out? Or am I on the wrong tree here. Anyway, I unchecked that box to get it working and it did.

But, even with that box unchecked, I am experiencing random estops. Although after reading through this I realised I still have a probe "flying lead" setup from the old days. Flying lead meaning just that with an alligator clip on one end and the other is actually grounded to my table. In the old days I clipped the alligator onto the end mill and touched off on the workpiece grounded through the vice/table. It is on a separate input pin but I am wondering if that is A introducing noise, or B somehow picking up an erronous signal which will then be a "wrong probe" contact and also error. So I am going to have a look at that tonight. I also think the only sheilding is on my latest build so yeh, I have something to look at instead of just pointing and crying when it fails again.

Have I missed anything? Lol Thanks guys

[joeavaerage]

Hi,
yes that is correct.

g31 (note the deliberate use of lower case, it is a habit you should get into with Mach4 as well) is if you like a modified g1 move. Recall the a g1 move has a destination and a feed rate. For example:

g1 z-50 f500 will cause the controlled point, wherever it is currently to move in the negative z direction at 500mm/min until z=-50mm. Conversely:

g31 z-50 f500 will cause the controlled point, wherever it is currently to move in the negative z direction at 500mm/min until either it touches something, ie a probe event OR it reaches z=-50mm
With the ESS checkbox checked the ESS would fault if it reached its terminal position WITHOUT encountering a Probe Event.

The programmers of Mach have used the equivalence of g1 and g31 to use g31 to make probe pre-positioning moves. With a prepositioning move Mach DOES NOT expect a probe event, that is normal.
If you wish to use Machs probing module you'll have to uncheck the box or use the M2010 macro as detailed in the ESS tab.

It is on a separate input pin but I am wondering if that is A introducing noise, or B somehow picking up an erronous signal which will then be a "wrong probe" contact and also error.

That is highly likely. Note on that same tab that Mach has four different probe inputs. What happens if you are probing on probe one and while that is happening probe triggers? It may be that represents a collision
in which case you want Mach to Estop. Then again it may have no bearing. There is a check box for that behaviour too.

Second issue is why have a piece of wire dangling around.....its a f.......king antenna....and yes it will collect noise, especially if its not been terminated with a known and suitably low impedance, not only is it an antenna
it could well be a very sensitive antenna to boot.

Craig