Quote Originally Posted by EddyCurrent View Post
What would you have it do ?

Stop the VFD
Send a FeedHold signal to Mach3 and let it control the stepper motors


Is it not just as easy to do it from the PC ?
Sometimes i am not sure what happens, so i just hit the pause / feedhold/ button, instead of the estop. Spindle still rotates and i check. if everything ok, i hit the "cycle start" button which is also at the machine, so everything continues, as if nothing have happened.
The keyboard is 2m away in my case, so its not easier.

I do this if i want to check if the material has loosened on the fixture, clean some bearings, remove sticks from the vacuum shoe and so, without further interrupting the process.

On next machine i will have flood and vacuum buttons also. Sometimes when i want to do something with the keyboard i accidentally touch the wrong buttons. last time somehow i zeroed the machine coordinates. So had to stop, go to home, zero again, get out of Mach3,save fixture, then again in, zero on the work piece and start again the job.