Running a Mach3 Macro with UCCNC

[krsykes23]

Is your active low setting backwards?

This doing my head in!

I do have the M7 and M8 relays set to Active Low. I had to do this because when I first setup the machine with UCCNC, on powering up the electronics (and the AXBB-E of course), all three relays on the board were energised.
They are connected to Non-Isolated Outputs on Port 1, pin 15 for the ATC (Mist), pin 17 for the Spindle and pin 16 for the Vacuum Pump (Flood). To get around the problem of the relay board energising on powering up the electronics, I added an illuminated switch on the front panel of the electronics cabinet which simply turns power to the relay board on/off. I make sure this switch is off when powering up the electronics. When UCCNC loads, I can then switch the power to the relay board. When everything is powered up, all three relays (Spindle, ATC Drawbar and Vacuum Pump) work just fine, from buttons on the screenset.

So, my frustration is why the ATC Drawbar doesn't work correctly on running an M6 command. I did run a test with G-Code (no toolchange) and the Spindle turns on correctly, which again proves that the relay board is working correctly.

[ger21]

You're macro has two commands for the drawbar, Setoutpin and Clroutpin.
If I understand correctly, it sounds like Setoutpin in closing the drawbar, and Clroutpin is opening it.
You could try reversing them, but ideally you would make the change downstream. Does your relay board have NO and NC contacts? Maybe just switch them? Or does it have a jumper to reverse operation?

[krsykes23]

You're macro has two commands for the drawbar, Setoutpin and Clroutpin.
If I understand correctly, it sounds like Setoutpin in closing the drawbar, and Clroutpin is opening it.
You could try reversing them, but ideally you would make the change downstream. Does your relay board have NO and NC contacts? Maybe just switch them? Or does it have a jumper to reverse operation?

I appreciate what you mean about the NO/NC relays but I know that the Setoutpin is working, as the Drawbar opens to release the tool but it doesn't switch off.

I'm wondering if the outputs from AXBB-E is correct, even though all three relays work fine when pressing buttons (M3, M7 and M8) on the screenset. The relay board is powered by 5v and the input signals are 5v, as in my previous Mach3 setup, I had a separate 5v PSU for this, and the signals from the LPT port (I believe) were 5v? But am I correct in saying that the Non-Isolated Outputs from the AXBB-E are 24v?

I'm clutching at straws now and getting really frustrated, as I had a perfectly working machine a couple of weeks ago and now I don't!

[krsykes23]

I've been doing a bit more investigating....

I added a LED to the screenset. assigned it to #67 (Indicates the actual logic state of port#1 pin#15). I ran the toolchange sequence and noticed that the LED was ON, even before the drawbar opened. When the drawbar opened, the LED turned OFF!!

So it seems that it must be something to do with the Active Low/High setting of the relays. I do have another relay board and this one is 24v input but it has active high/low jumpers, which the existing one doesn't. I think I'll try that one. I think you posted a reply to me that suggested using Port 3 instead of Port 1 but I believe these outputs require the assignment of virtual LEDs to set the output??

[krsykes23]

Success! I now have this working correctly. It was the 4 way relay board that was causing the error.

I now have swapped it out for an almost identical 4 way relay board but with Active High/Low jumpers. Once set to active High, it works perfectly.

I now just need help to modify the M6 tool-change but I've posted this in 'Macros'.

Getting very close now to having a working machine again.