Troubles with anti collision and Mach4

[Cbert10]

I have recently installed a anti collision head with 3 proximity sensors wired in series onto my plasma table. I am currently using sensors as my initial height sensing and attempting use as collision detection. However the collision detection portion is not working. It will do the initial height sensing just fine however when I manually activate the proximity sensors during a cutting operation it will not stop it. If I manually activate the sensors during normal jog mode it stops the machine.
I have the ESS with TMC3in1. Am I wrong in thinking that the only setting that needs to be on is in the probing section (feed hold if any of these signals activate while the torch is on). I have my G31 command correctly mapped.

any help is appreciated

[cuttinparts]

I am not familiar with your equipment and not very knowledgeable with gcode but how did you get the probe input to initiate a feed hold during gcode execution?

[Cbert10]

Well I figured it would work through the plasma probing screen in the Ethernet smooth stepper setup. However I have not been able to get it to work. I am thinking that I can not have all 3 proximity sensors wired together as a limit and probe input. I believe I am going to to switch to run an ohmic probe for initial height sensing and then the 3 proximity sensors can be dedicated limit switches

[cuttinparts]

That may be a better solution but i would definitely try to get the collision detection working before going to the bother of setting up ohmic height sensing as you may come across another solution during the process of getting the collision going. Let us know how it works out.

[Cbert10]

So I figured out my problem with the anti collision. The torch need to be on and cutting in order for it to work with my settings. I had been trying to activate it during dry runs. Seems kinda weird to me. I would like the sensors to activate if it hits a tip up during a rapid, but without the torch on it won’t active. Not sure what others have done for their setup.

[djreiswig]

Are you using the limits inputs? I don't think they work in jog mode. It might help to see how you have the sensors wired and which inputs you are using.

[Cbert10]

Well I thought I had it figured out. I stopped stopped a couple of times during some signs I was cutting. But today when making some test cuts I was unable to make is stop while cutting. I’m at a complete loss. Between this and not being able to get my limit switches to work makes me want to throw in the towel on Mach.

[adbuch]

I have limit switches (actually proximity sensors) on my Avid cnc Pro4848 router table and they do work when jogging. This table runs on Mach3.
David

[djreiswig]

You are correct. I don't have limits, so I wasn't sure.

[robertspark]

you are running an ESS with mach4.

it is worth noting that mach3/4 runs on Windows. this being obvious that it does not run real time.

also what may be obvious is the ESS is a motion controller....

this means information has to be buffered when sent from the pc to the ESS and buffered when it is sent back.

what may be less known or obvious is some functions are offloaded to the motion controller and have little to do with mach3/4.

these include jogging and probing.

bear with me.... I appreciate you are probably thinking you know all this.....

but do you understand how probing and jogging functions actually work in a non realtime application ....

when you press the probe button of send the gcode for probing
mach3/4 sends a command to the motion controller.... say probe downward at feedrate whatever and if you don't touch something in Z distance send error.
the motion controller gets this message and just runs the code. it does NOT report back to mach3/4 untill either the probe touches something or runs out of travel

jogging is the same.....
Mach 3/4 just sends a signal jog at feedrate whatever sticks it in the buffer and sends it off to the motion controller....
if you are still pressing the jog button when the buffer is next sent it tells the motion controller to either keep jogging or stop.
there is no feedback from the motion controller for these commands....

this means if you want the probe input to do something else..... like act as a fail safe probe input..... I've you are jogging or moving from point a to b and the probe input is triggered and you want the machine to stop these are not functions that mach3/4 can do....
they are motion controller functions.
you will need to ask warp9 if the ESS has fail safe probing built into the motion controller.

if you buy another motion controller it MAY or MAY NOT have this built in. jogging is one thing that the Chinese motion controllers sometimes did not include.... or it was not done properly.

uccnc and the UC motion controllers do have safe probing (I forget the g/m code to turn it on and off). but if the probe input was tripped when not doing a probing routine it would stop motion so you don't break your expensive touch probe.

with the ESS and Mach4 you can try to do or build a work around...... it won't be realtime so it will have a delay but what you can try to do is wire the probe / breakaway torch holder to TWO inputs.

input 1 will be the probe input (remember the ESS does not need to send this signal back to mach3/4 as really it's an internal motion controller function)
the second input you can wire to a general input.
you create a macroloop and you get that macroloop to monitor that second input.

you may have to add some logic like "when probing ignore input 2"

but via the macroloop you tell it to stop the machine (with deceleration!) if that input is triggered or changes state.

you have 2 options with mach4 lua which from (very long time ago) memory was to stop immediately (like an estop) or stop with deceleration (a planned stop)

the difference is if you stop with deceleration the machine will keep its coordinates. it you stop immediately like an estop it will loose it's coordinates.... this may not seem a big thing but if you don't want to waste the material and don't want to re-home the machine to restart from the very beginning then the two will have a difference.

I cannot help with lua and macroloops as I have no real memory from when I dabbled with mach4. I now use linuxcnc and don't have all that motion controller warp9 lack of functions or stuff working to worry about. .(you cannot change how the ESS works internally as it's an FPGA and is programmed by warp9 so if stuff does not work as you want you are best to ask them on the forum. if they tell you it's on the list or they will look into it. forget it, your kids will have grandkids before it is likely to happen..... find another way.

(does the ESS do threading yet with an encoder in mach3 or 4. yet, that was a long ruining thread asking for it to happen and it was always "soon" or "6 months")

[Cbert10]

Thank you for your detailed response. I was kinda afraid something like that might be the case. I will ask them on their forum and see what kind of response I get. I have heard a lot of good things about Linux cnc after I went head first into Mach. With all my troubles it might be worth a switch.
I only dabble in the plasma section go Mach so I am unaware if they offer threading yet.

[robertspark]

I started with mach3 then 4 then uccnc and now linuxcnc. I should have started with linuxcnc and stuck it out as it can and does do everything but the learning curve is steep.

ask on the warp9 forum and see if they give you a solution.

I used to be very supportive of warp9 but I just got board of being strung along. to be fair the mach4 plugin broke everytime there was a plugin update and that was very regularly and plasma was not working then as it was quite a few years ago.