How to re-enable a disabled axis

[jpbarad7]

I am using KFLOP in a closed-loop stepper sysem with Mach 3 and an iMach pendant control.

Everything has been working very well and I am now just trying to tweak a few of the settings, such as decreasing Max Following Error to it's lowest value to allow my axes to jog at their highest possible rates.

When I exceed the Max Following Error on any axis, that axis is immediated disabled, and an error message to that effect appears in Mach 3 (As expected).

To re-enable the disabled axis requires shutting down and restarting the PC on which the software is running, changing the Max Following Error value in KMotion, saving the C program, and reloading Mach 3 for a re-test. Simply cycling power to the KFLOP and motor drivers is not enough to clear the 'axis disabled' error.

My question is this: After an axis has become disabled due to exceeding the Max Following Error, is their an easier way to re-enable it other than shutting down and restarting the PC?

I suspect I might be able to test the Max following error limits using the movement commands within the step-response screen, but translating those units to Mach 3 is easier said than done.

Any information you can provide is appreciated.

Jim

[TomKerekes]

Hi Jim,

To re-enable the disabled axis requires shutting down and restarting the PC on which the software is running, changing the Max Following Error value in KMotion, saving the C program, and reloading Mach 3 for a re-test. Simply cycling power to the KFLOP and motor drivers is not enough to clear the 'axis disabled' error.

You should be able to just re-initialize. One possibility is that your Initialize program Enables the axis with a Destination of zero. If the encoder position is far from zero then this will result in an immediate following error. There are at least 2 solutions for this. #1 Zero the axis Position so it will match the destination of 0. Note the encoders always track the position regardless of any fault unless the are explicitly zero'ed. #2 use EnableAxisDest(xx, chx->Position) to enable the axis while also setting the Destination to the encoder Position. This will allow the axis to servo wherever it is. Actually EnableAxis(xx); will do the same thing for a servo axis.

but translating those units to Mach 3 is easier said than done.

What is the difficulty? Actually the Max Following Error units and the Step Response Screen should both have units of counts. Otherwise to convert to Mach3 units divide by the resolution.

HTH

[jpbarad7]

Thank you.

Option #1 worked very well.

When converting to Mach3, you said to divide the KFLOP counts by the 'resolution'.

Can you explain resolution? I'm not sure what you mean.

Thank you again.

Jim

[TomKerekes]

The axis resolution is the number of encoder counts per unit for the axis. For example with resolution of 2000 counts/inch if the Step Response Screen shows following errors of 40 counts that would be:

40 counts / 2000 counts/inch = 0.02 inches

HTH

[jpbarad7]

Thank you.

Does this conversion formula also work for converting the motor tuning data from Kmotion to Mach3?

I am using Applied Motion Products Step-Servos and the step counts are much higher than those shown in your examples in the manual.

For example, the parameters for my X axis, after tuning with Kmotion, are as follows:

ch0->Vel=225000;
ch0->Accel=5e+06;
ch0->Jerk=1e+07;

ch0->InputGain0=-46;

ch0->MaxFollowingError=3000;

My Steps per Inch within Mach3 for this axis are: 233500


Can the Kmotion Velocity and Acceleration numbers be directly converted and used as the Velocity and Acceleration values in Mach3?

Not knowing how to do this, by trial and error, I arrived at the following for Mach3:

Velocity = 70
Acceleration = 10

Again, my system seems to be very stable and accurate, however, I feel I've arrived here by flying by the seat of my pants, rather than really understanding what is happening.

Thanks, in advance, for helping me through this....

Jim