Heeks CAD and CAM

[dirktheeng]

All,

I read through Tim's post on settin up Mach3 for M10/M11 commands(http://www.machsupport.com/forum/index. ... l#msg82436) and I'm a little bit confused. If I understand the posts correctly, the M10/M11 control do the same thing as the M3/m4 spindle on/off commands but with out a 500ms delay. I understand that there shouldn't be anything special needed to make this work other than adding P1 to the command to set the port number.

In ports and pins, I enabled output 1 and set it to pin 17 of port 1 (the laser enable pin for the controller). I am expecting the output 1 pin to light up in the diagnostics page when Mach 3 recieves the M11P1 command, but nothing happens on that screen. I have the relay for the spindle enabled and set to output 1. I'm not sure what else I have to do here.

I'm a bit confused here. Any help would be appreciated

[dirktheeng]

All,

I read through Tim's post on settin up Mach3 for M10/M11 commands(http://www.machsupport.com/forum/index. ... l#msg82436) and I'm a little bit confused. If I understand the posts correctly, the M10/M11 control do the same thing as the M3/m4 spindle on/off commands but with out a 500ms delay. I understand that there shouldn't be anything special needed to make this work other than adding P1 to the command to set the port number.

In ports and pins, I enabled output 1 and set it to pin 17 of port 1 (the laser enable pin for the controller). I am expecting the output 1 pin to light up in the diagnostics page when Mach 3 recieves the M11P1 command, but nothing happens on that screen. I have the relay for the spindle enabled and set to output 1. I'm not sure what else I have to do here.

I'm a bit confused here. Any help would be appreciated

I just turned the smoothstepper off on loadup and I get the output to light up with the spindle. There is an option in the plugin control to use M10/M11 for spindle control. I tried that, but the light still doesn't come on. I will have to check the outputs to see if they are going high. I'm not sure if the plugin has the right stuff to make this work.

[bdring]

I am not sure if this is the answer, but I think you need to ignore the spindle. I think this is dealing with the digital output only. Direct the digital output to the pin you want and disable or have the spindle set to something else. You really only care about a voltage on the pin anyway.

[dirktheeng]

I think I am going to have to write a macro anc crank the kernal speed up to make sure that the delay is absolutely minima.

With the smoothstepper on, I can run the kernal at 100khz without problem so my delay on the diagnostics screen says zero. Other people have said that the M10/M11 commands don't work right with the smoothstepper, but they can get the outputs to work with a macro. I don't think there should really be an issue if the kernal speed is really high.

[bdring]

What are you using, Smoothstepper or parallel port. The kernel speed and delay only deal with the parallel port. The USB to Smoothstepper is rate probably only 40Hz (not kHz). What plugin version are you using for the Smoothstepper?

[dirktheeng]

Ok,

I wrote a macro m101.m1s with the command

ActivateSignal(OutPut1)

in it. Similarly, I wrote a file m102.m1s with the command

DeActivateSignal(OutPut1)

I just tried them in the MDI line and they do indeed turn the right pin on for the laser. I'll modify the iso.py file to give these commands and see what happens in a cutting file.

[dirktheeng]

The macro worked fine. My laser on/off commands are m101 and m102 respectively (that is output 1 on and off). I don't have a scope to check the delay, so I can't report that. I will have to wait for the laser to come and check to see if I get burn marks, but there really isn't any noticable delay in the command so that is good. With the kernal speed up to 100khz, I don't think there will be much of anything to worry about... plus this gets executed onboard of the smooth stepper in line with the code... I think, so there shouldnt' be a problem. I will report on this later.

PS... I have always wanted to get a scope... have you seen the cheap ones that you can connect to the computer? Any recommendations? I don't have more than a couple hundred dolars to dedicate to this.

[cpdude]

Maybe a PropScope (http://www.parallax.com/Store/Microcontrollers/PropellerTools/tabid/143/ProductID/586/List/0/Default.aspx?SortField=ProductName,ProductName)

[dirktheeng]

What are you using, Smoothstepper or parallel port. The kernel speed and delay only deal with the parallel port. The USB to Smoothstepper is rate probably only 40Hz (not kHz). What plugin version are you using for the Smoothstepper?

Your right... the kernal speed doesn't matter when using the smoothstepper. However, the internal speed for the stepper is pretty high. I have it ste to 1khz right now and it can go up to 4khz. This is the speed that it cycles at to set velocity. I am assuming that it looks for the g-code in that loop as well and executes it in that time frame as well.

If I understand this correctly, the smooth stepper has a certain memory buffer that it accumulates g-code in. It will execute that gcode sequencially, updatign velocities accordingly. The settings say that it will updat the velocity once every 0.001. In order to update the velocity it has to check the gcode, so it has to at least check the position and be able to appropriately execute the gcode line within that time frame. So I am thinking that the signal should go high within at least that timeframe which is about what Tim reported (1.5ms for the M10/M11 option). I would be surprised if it were much longer than that.

[dirktheeng]

Maybe a PropScope (http://www.parallax.com/Store/Microcontrollers/PropellerTools/tabid/143/ProductID/586/List/0/Default.aspx?SortField=ProductName,ProductName)

Wow, that looks pretty cool... 25Msps is pretty good for that kind of price. Maybe, if I am a good boy, my wife will let me spend the money to get it