Help setting up Ethernet Smooth Steper

[AndyFromWarp9TD]

So Tenson may be past this stage, but I will post it anyways to help others who may be trying to set up their ESS.

Go to our YouTube channel and watch these videos:

1. How to use the SCU (System Configuration Utility) So your PC can talk with your ESS.
2. Installing Mach3 and the ESS Plugin

The EStop pin issue is something I will be removing from the plugin. When I wrote the plugin I was concerned about the ESS knowing that an EStop happened. In the meantime, I would recommend assigning EStop to an unused pin, such as Port 1 Pin 10 and making it Active Low. Any of pins 10, 11, 12, 13, and 15 of Port 1, 2, or 3 will work.


This is in Mach3 -> Menu -> Config ->Ports and Pins -> Input Signals.

Once you do this, you should see the Emergency light go off in the Diagnostics tab:



However, you really want to have an EStop connected to disable your motors via hardware

What is an EStop button?

The EStop button is an Emergency Stop button. The EStop button is there so it can be pressed during an emergency so it can stop your equipment, and hopefully prevent injuries and damage.
Why do I need an EStop button?

The EStop button is a very import safety feature! It can protect you from injury and death, as well as possibly preventing damage to your work piece and equipment.

Every machine should have an EStop button (or multiple EStop buttons), and you should test your EStop button's functionality regularly.
How does the EStop button work with a SmoothStepper?

Software is not a reliable way to stop motors in an Emergency situation, since something can go wrong with software. You need to rely on hardware approach to disable motors and other outputs in an Emergency situation. The EStop button should disable your motors and other output devices (spindles, plasma cutters, lasers, etc...), but it shouldn't disable the SmoothStepper. Instead the SmoothStepper's EStop input signal should be treated as a courtesy signal to inform you visually that the EStop button has been pressed and also used to inform Mach3 or Mach4 to halt the G-Code.


Your pin assignments for the motors look OK. The ESS uses the same dialogs as Mach, so just enter the same values for the ESS.

According to you calculations, the max step frequency should be 64 kHz for the Z axis. You should be able to use 32 kHz for the X and Y axes.

Leave the Controller Frequency at 1 kHz, though you could try 2 kHz if you want a little less delay when using FRO or Feed Hold. The ESS has a fixed amount of memory, and the controller frequency is a setting for how many motion positions per second there are. At 2 kHz you will have twice as many points per second, but with the same amount of memory the buffer will be half as long in seconds. At 4 kHz the buffer is so short that you could run out of data in the middle of a move. Windows isn't all that reliable, and so the plugin doesn't always communicate on a timely basis.


Sincerley,
Andy