Sieg KX1 & Mach3 won't come out of emergency reset

[Jess]

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It just about broke me and then I almost went nuclear. So I just packed up and went inside.

Know the feeling! I'd suggest a nice calming cup of tea but, in the past, I've just ended up angrily drinking tea.

I'm still concerned the estop is a problem and worried about doing a bigger part. Only time will tell I guess.

I'm not sure if it's just how you've explained it, but (ignoring the initial problem which we can probably attribute to the guard switch) there seems to be a pattern:

The machine is running, but then gets itself jammed in e-stop, so you turn everything off, leave it for a bit, then when you come back, it's working again. If so, that sounds suspiciously like it could be an EMI (interference) problem.

The prime suspect for EMI (as always) is the spindle drive board and spindle, so it's probably worth checking if you can reliably get through the motions of a job with the spindle off/driver board disconnected, but not with it running. That I can't see a shielded cable between the spindle driver and the breakout/motion controller does make me particularly suspicious.

If disconnecting the spindle board doesn't fix things up, you'd move on to checking if it was the stepper motors and so forth. It's probably better just to link http://www.cnccookbook.com/CCCNCNoise.html at this point; although, some of it's recommendations are more practical for people making machines from scratch.

BTW, I think your link suggests that your motion control board is powered from your PC, so if it does get in a huff, it's only going to get power cycled when the USB port loses power. There's a tendency for PCs and laptops to sleep, rather than switch off and they often leave their USB ports powered for your convenience during sleep so you can charge your 'phone. (This might explain why it seems to fix itself overnight, because you unplug everything when you give up.)

It would be a massive job and one I shouldn't have to do!

Agreed. You should have been able to unpack it, maybe tram it up a bit, and then be making chips. The attraction of buying a commercial mill is not having to do any of this.

[JAZZCNC]

Cut those bloody tie raps off as well I hate to see unshielded wires bound together, esp if 5V signal wires.