Kanalog board doesn't turn on unless..

[Roamin]

I am fairly new in the Kmotion world and some things I can't grasp.. How is the Kanalog board actually supposed to turn on ? No matter what I set in the config & flash screen, the light on the Kanalog board doesn't light until I load one of the premade motor files (either KanalogInitialPID.mot or KanalogDAC.mot). Once I load these files the light on the Kanalog lights up and then the DACS are active. I cannot find anything specific in these files that would enable the board VS entering my own settings on the config page. Once I loaded those motor files , the board comes alive and I can change anything on that screen and the board remains active.

My setup was acting very strange, where no matter what I did , launching the init in KmotionCNC would no longer turn my position in blue (encoder mode) , and they would remain yellow. So after nearly 2 hours of trying stuff and reverting any recent code I had made I couldn't figure it out, so I erased the board using the "NEW VERSION" option. Once the board was erased then I loaded my main C file in thread 1 , but the Kanalog board doesn't boot up! So I load KanalogDAC.mot into channel 0 and right then after the Kanalog board is active! So I return to my main init C file and its works again. I return in KmotionCNC and to my surprise , init turns the position blue once again. I have absolutely no idea why either the Kanalog board doesn't boot until I load that file and why KmotionCNC no longer turned blue when initializing (the relays I have connected to the spindle for direction work properly so the init file loads).

[TomKerekes]

Hi Roamin,

Sorry you are having trouble.

On boot up KFLOP should auto detect that a Kanalog is connected and continuously communicate with it which will then enable the Kanalog Board and the Enabled LED.

This should all be automatic without you doing anything.

One possibility is that you somehow are using some IO (basically IO 0-15) on JP7 that is needed to communicate with Kanalog. Either by changing Bit Directions or States of these IO Pins. Configuring an axis to use these pins as Step/Dir IO will also cause the communication to fail.

We don't recommend Flashing anything to KFLOP for just this reason. Users forget what accumulated changes they have made. And there is no need. The Init Program can configure everything. But Flashing "New Version" should put everything back into the default state.

If you Flash "New Version" and cycle power does the Kanalog LED come on?

How is KFLOP/Kanalog being powered?

What Version are you using?

[Roamin]

Hi Tom,

Thanks for getting back to me so fast. Telling me about the "accumulated changes" made a lot of sense on the behavior of the Kflop. I was under the assumption that when I would flash to user memory any changes I made to the code was updated and so simply removing a line like "EnableAxis(6);" would disable this axis, but unless I flash user memory with a "DisableAxis(6);" it will remain enabled. I will follow your advice of erasing user memory and not flash anything in there anymore. Re-reading the help document about the user memory it does mention persistent changes.

I will go ahead a erase user memory first thing when I get to the machine in the morning. Then I will check if the Kanalog board is active right away. My current code is very very basic as it only contains init to the 3 axis and a loop that generates the tachometer signal for the axes based on the encoders, so I don't think it was my code stopping the Kanalog from booting.

The Kflop/Kanalog is powered by the Fanuc's main PSU, using the molex connection. My very first try turning on the Kanalog before was using USB power and at that moment it didn't work, so I used a bench PSU via molex and that also didn't work. It started working the very first time when I loaded the .mot file and so I assumed it was part of the process. The Kflop had most likely been used by someone else before so it's possible it had old settings in there. The Kanalog board is brand new and was bought just weeks ago. Strangely though without anything connected anywhere and after a few minutes of the board idling there one of the FET drivers lightly smoked.. There isn't any apparent damage to any of them but it did smell of burning. I have not yet tested the one I suspect had an issue and used 2 other drivers to control the spindle direction without issues.

About the version , I'm not sure if you are asking for firmware version , hardware version or software version. For the software I'm using 4.34 , hardware version I'll check in the morning and report. Unsure how to check for the firmware version besides maybe in the console after sending a command?

Thanks for your help! I'll now have a much better understanding as to why the board isn't doing what I expect it to!

[Roamin]

Good morning,

I have checked the hardware version and it is 1.3.

I have erased flash memory and sure enough ,Kanalog board boots up directly without needing to use any MOT files.

I checked the version in console and it is :
KFLOP 4.34 Build 16:07:06 Aug 14 2018
KFLOP 4.34

So this topic is now resolved. Thanks for helping me understand what was going on. Going back to the spindle thread as I am still having issues with the control.

[TomKerekes]

Hi Roamin,

Thanks for posting back.

You might run a later Test Version. See Announcements here.

[EulaCohen]

I am fairly new in the Kmotion world and some things I can't grasp.. How is the Kanalog board actually supposed to turn on ? No matter what I set in the config & flash screen, the light on the Kanalog board doesn't light until I load one of the premade motor files (either KanalogInitialPID.mot or KanalogDAC.mot). Once I load these files the light on the Kanalog lights up and then the DACS are active. I cannot find anything specific in these files that would enable the board VS entering my own settings on the config page. Once I loaded those motor files , the board comes alive and I can change anything on that screen and the board remains active.

My setup was acting very strange, where no matter what I did , launching the init in KmotionCNC would no longer turn my position in blue (encoder mode) , and they would remain yellow. So after nearly 2 hours of trying stuff and reverting any recent code I had made I couldn't figure it out, so I erased the board using the "NEW VERSION" option. Once the board was erased then I loaded my main C file in thread 1 , but the Kanalog board doesn't boot up! So I load KanalogDAC.mot into channel 0 and right then after the Kanalog board is active! So I return to my main init C file and its works again. I return in KmotionCNC and to my surprise , init turns the position blue once again. I have absolutely no idea why either the Kanalog board doesn't boot until I load that file and why KmotionCNC no longer turned blue when initializing (the relays I have connected to the spindle for direction work properly so the init file loads).

the Kanalog board should typically turn on when power is supplied to it. However, it's possible that the board requires some initialization or configuration to fully activate its functionalities. Loading the premade motor files (KanalogInitialPID.mot or KanalogDAC.mot) might contain the necessary settings or commands to enable the board.