Spindle2 board Mach3 set up

Hi all, I bought a Spindle2 board that i want to use to control my cnc minilathe spindle. Im useing Mach3 and was hopeing some of you might know what paramiters to set in Mach to get this board to work. Im not sure if i should be useing PWM or step/direction to feed into the board or mabe it doesnt matter wich i use? I did a few google searches on this board but couldnt realy find any setup info on it, hopefuly im not the only one useing the spindle2:confused:


any advice on this would be realy app


regards
Simon

Hi Simon

Just had a look on DIYCNC site, you need to use step and direction. The step rate controls the 0 to 10 volts the direction FWD and REV.
Im not at home at the moment so when I get back I will have a look at some info I have, as I had a board that worked the same but just changed it for a board that uses PWM.

andy

Andy, thats awesome thanx! il start by setting it to step/dir then. i looked at the DIYcnc site and saw it said step/dir but alot of ppl talk about PWM for spindle control so i wasnt sure wich to use.

Wich PWM board are you useing? does it work better than the step/dir boards?


regards
Simon

Simon

start by going to Config Ports & Pins Motor Outputs go down the list on the left until you get to the Spindle tab then Enable the Spindle with a green tick.

Fill in the pin numbers you have used for the Step and Direction pins and the port number (usually Port 1 for both Step and Direction) click Apply and the OK.

Go to Config again select Ports and Pins then the Spindle Setup Tab.

In the Motor Control Box tick the box at the side of Spindle Motor Output and also the box at the side of Step/Direction Motor click Apply then Ok.

Again go to Config Motor Tuning select the Spindle Tab.

Set the Steps Per to 1000 Velocity to Max start low on the Acceleration, set the Step Pulse to 3 to start with, this will affect the analog output voltage so you can come back to this when you do your final tweaking. Click on Save Axis then Ok.

From here on in you will have to read the info that came with your board, you might have a trim pot that you can adjust to give you your max output voltage to your motor control unit.

What sould happen now (do not connect your spindle to your board yet) when you give an M3 command in Mach you should get a voltage output from the analog pins on your spindle board.
Lets say your Max speed is 12000 RPM if you type the command S12000 then press enter in the MDI screen in Mach followed by a M3 command you should get the max voltage output, if you then type in S6000 you should get half your max voltage. If the voltage is lower then this is where you can tweak the step pulse width and the trim pot (if you have one) to calibrate the output voltage.

Hope this helps

Regards

Andy

PS the board I am using at the moment is the PMDX 126 BOB with the PMDX 107 speed control. This is a PWM system you don't need any relays to switch the spindle on it uses the PWM signal to switch on the spindle as well as set the speed and it works very well.

Andy thx for the long and detailed post.

I set up mach acording to those settings but im not getting any voltage out from the board, well atchualy im geting 0.02vdc wether the spindle is on or off but i guess that could be considerd 0v, if i shut down all power to the BOB and spindle board and unplug the P port it does go to exactly 0v so i know its not my meter thats faulty.

coupple of quick questions: 1 In the outputs tab do i need to set an output to the same pin (2) as i set in motor outputs spindle box, or is just seting the motoroutputs spindle box enough to get it to give a signal to the spindle board?



2 In the spindle set up tab under ports and pins theres 2 boxes marked "PWM Base freq" and "Minimum PWM" do i need to type anything in thease boxes or do they have no affect when its set to step/dir?

thinking about it i guess i should double check that i have it phisicaly wired to pin 2 and not another pin!



regards
Simon

if you have everything setup correctly and you still don't get any output from the board, go into the computers bios settings and change the parallel port to EPP.

Simon

Do you have a seperate 12v supply for your spindle board or did you buy the one with the 12v DC to DC converter?

The PWM boxes have nothing to do with your step/direction board so no need to enter anything there.

So long as you have set up the the correct pin numbers for the step and direction on the motor output tab there should be no need to enter anything to the same pin number for it to work.

Don't forget if you cannot get it to work you could have a faulty board.

Andy

I have a seprate 12v supply, i got one from mapplins, 12v and 300ma. I been playing around with it all day and just cant get any voltage out of it, iv checked all the wireing for correct pins and stuff but still no luck. Andy did you get your PMDX boards from somewere in uk? think i might just go ahead and buy one.


Regards
Simon

have you checked the parallel port is set to epp.

i2i, Im not sure what epp is or how to check it:confused: is it easy to check?


regards
Simon

you have to go into the computers bios/setup. You do this when the computer is powering up before windows, you will se a prompt telling you to press a certain key to go into setup, it's normally F2, or F1, or delete, or sometimes enter.
When you're in the setup screen you need to find the parallel port settings, which are usually on the second page or in the advanced page. Look at the settings and it will probably be ECP, just change it to EPP, then save, then exit.

PS. if you see the windows logo, you've missed the prompt and you'll have to try again

Ok just checked it and its set to "ECP+EPP" does that mean it should be ok?

regards
Simon

try it on epp alone

Hi Simon

I ordered my board direct from PMDX in the States, it arrived in less than a week.

Steve who owns the company is very prompt at replying to e-mails and very helpful, the boards are by no means the cheapest you can buy but the quality is second to none and the set up is very easy.

Before you go spending anymore of your hard earned cash I would try to get what you have working, I have never delt with Roy at DIYCNC but I have only read very good comments about him,I would drop him an email to see if he can help if we cannot sort it.

One more thing you could do, is with your meter check the voltage on your output pins on your breakout board, put one probe on the common terminal the other on the step pin, check the voltage without trying to turn on your spindle, then do an M3 command and check again and see if you get a difference in voltage. Depending on your system you should get a swing of between 0 to 5 volts (this could also be around 3.3 volts).

Ok i tried the 5v check you mentioned Andy, and i think i found the problem. pin 1 is only showing 0.1vdc wether the spindle is on or off and wether i set the rpm to 100 or 2500 its always 0.1v. i put the meter on one of the home switch inputs and it was showing 5.1V or 0v depending wether i had the switch pressed or not, so im thinking pin 1 is nackerd. im gana try soldering the spindle board to another output pin and see if that sorts it.


regards
Simon

Success!! I wired it to pin 2 and its giveing a voltage, allmost 11V at max rpm but at half rpm its around 8V so its not very linear so il have a play with the spindle settings in mach. I havent tried wireing it up to the motor yet so il have to look into that aswell, thanx for the help Andy,


regards
Simon

Hi Simon

Glad we got there in the end, it's all a learning curve :smile: