Rotary Axis issues

gSender 🐛 Bug
1

Hi everyone,

I started using GSender a little while back and have mostly enjoyed the software
 I am, however, having a nighmare trying to use a fourth rotary axis


I have a Sainsmart 4040 Pro Max, running GRBL

I am running into the following issues :

When jogging the A axis, the Y axis also moves
 the 4040 Pro Max has a seperate A axis output cable for a rotary module and the Y axis does not get disconnected when using the a axis. (in fact disconnecting the two Y motors is quite difficult)

When switching back from Rotary mode to normal mode, the Y Axis resolution and rate is reset back to some arbitrary value. I saw another post from a year back saying there were plans for a default value to set it back to ( ) - this is missing from my UI, unsure if this was ever implemented

This may be the result of the update in the previous point not working but there is a UI bug in the Rotary settings where I just get a [object Object] value on the screen:

image
image1075×674 72.4 KB

I am therefore unable to use my Rotary axis at all in GSender
. not with the Y axis moving all the time and it is a pain resetting my Y Motor values every time I switch back to non-rotary mode, if I forget my next job is shrunk to quarter of the Y size (as it resets the resolution to 200 instead of 800).

Any help will be greaty appreciated.

2

@CplMulder Welcome to the group, Chris.

I’m sure that others here will be able to help more than I can. I’ve not even heard of 32-bit grbl. :grinning_face:

I see one thing in your screencap that is not the cause of your problem, but will cause other issues down the road. You have $103 set to 35.56. According to the user manual for your rotary, that value should be 177.777.

Are you setting gSender to “rotary” or “4th axis”? Whichever one you have it set to, try the other one.

1 Like
3

Thanks gwilki, thanks for pointing that out, you are correct, the value is incorrect, however my value is slightly different as I have a non Genmitsu 4th axis chuck
. I did all the calculations and now have it perfectly dialed in, rotating the correct amount of degrees in Universal GCode Sender (actually the correct value for me $103 is 71.11)

And yes, I set GSender to Rotary mode (on the main “carve” screen) before trying

4

@CplMulder My setup is completely different from yours so nothing that I have done may be relevant. However, when I went with the closed loop motor on my Vortex and using the SLB to drive it, I was able to remove the Y/A switch that I started out with. Then, as per the manual, I needed to change the gSender setting from “rotary” to “4th axis”.

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@CplMulder Did changing to “4th axis” solve your problem?

6

Thanks again Grant, can you perhaps recall where you changed the GSender setting from Rotary to 4th Axis ? - can’t seem to find anything like that but this sounds promising 
. I need GSender to see it as a completely separate axis to Y

I managed to get it all working ok using UGCS, just not in GSender, it seems unable to seperate Y axis from the A for me

(apologies for the slow reply
 the forum bot keeps suspending me because I am new and posting a few replies)

7

@CplMulder Don’t you just love bots? What version of gSender are you running? I am still on 1.4.12 and I know the interface is different.

In 1.5.6, it’s not as intuitive as it is in 1.4.12. In the latter, the slider says rotary or 4th axis. In 1.5.6, it seems like the slider is “rotary” only. Turn it off. When you try this, be sure that nothing can be damaged, since my advice does not come with a warranty. :grinning_face:

8

Thanks again Grant, yeah I am on ver 1.5.4 
 perhaps time for a downgrade
. although I like GSender for everything else with non rotary jobs.

I shall give it a try tomorrow, late here in the UK now.

Have a great rest of your weekend mate!

9

@CplMulder You, as well, Chris. I’m not suggesting a downgrade. 1.4.12 simply suits my purposes very well and I’m of the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” crowd.

1 Like
10

Hello everyone,

I have the same problem with a Genmitsu 4040PRO and the 4th axis.

In gsender 1.5.6, there’s no option to select a 4th axis (only rotary).

With version 1.4.12, it’s possible.

I think this has something to do with grbl vs. grbl-HAL.

In version 1.4.12, the Genmitsu connects via grbl-HAL.

In version 1.5.6, it only connects via grbl.

I think it should be possible to manually choose how I want to connect again in the software.

A switch to turn automatic detection on and off would be helpful.

Would this be technically feasible in the software?

Best regards,
Herbert

11

@SOHR You can change the connection to grblHal in the config section of gSender.

12

Hi, thanks for your reply. No matter what I select in the settings, it always reverts to grbl. This wasn’t the case with version 1.4.12.

13

@SOHR I just tried it and it worked. I set grblHal as the default and checked the box for connect automtically. I shut down gSender and re-started it. It connected automatically to Hal.

14

Hello gwilki !

Today I made several attempts to connect my Genmitsu 4040 Pro to gsender via grbl-HAL.

I tried using different COM port drivers CH340-341SE (downloaded from Genmitsu) on various ports, and on different PCs, without success.

When I tried installing the driver from Windows Update, I was able to connect to grblHAL, but the axis controls were grayed out and unusable.

I then reinstalled version 1.4.12, and the connection works now, allowing me to control all four axes.

Although I really like version 1.5.6, I’ll have to stick with 1.4.12 for my four-axis projects for the time being.

Thanks in advance.

1 Like
15

It sounds to me that there are two distinct issues here:

  1. That the Genmitsu is running a 32-bit grbl which means that the typical approach we took to rotary control is incompatible since we assume you’re running standard grbl which doesn’t have A-axis control, and thus we assume that you’ve swapped your Y-axis cable to the A-axis rather than the reality where you have two separate cables.
  2. This means that to run the Genmitsu correctly, you need to connect using grblHAL since then that allows simultaneous 4-axis control, however newer versions of gSender are auto-connecting to grbl instead of grblHAL so that’s also causing issues.

We could definitely fix the auto-connect issue here and that seems like it would resolve these issues :+1: the only information we’d need is if either @CplMulder or @SOHR you could copy from the console or send a screenshot of the initial connection lines for your controller in this thread - then we could modify the auto-connect to look for those lines and consider them as grblHAL instead of grbl. For example:

image
image786×272 14 KB

2 Likes
16

Thanks for the reply
 I shall do so. Just to check is this from the logs when it first connects or do I have to switch over to Rotary mode first ?

17

This is when you first connect to the controller

18

Hello Chris,

I sent you the data via email.

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19

Mine is as follows :

image
image1016×1707 308 KB

Or in text format :

$6=1 (probe pin invert,bool)
$10=3 (status report mask)
$11=0.010 (junction deviation)
$12=0.002 (arc tolerance,mm)
$13=0 (report inches,bool)
$20=0 (soft limits,bool)
$21=0 (hard limits,bool)
$22=1 (home cycle,bool)
$23=3 (homing dir invert mask)
$24=100.000 (homing feed,mm/min)
$25=2000.000 (homing seek,mm/min)
$26=250 (homing debounce,msec)
$27=1.000 (homing pull-off,mm)
$30=10000 (maximum spindle speed,rpm)
$31=0 (minimum spindle speed,rpm)
$32=0 (laser mode enable,bool)
$100=800.000 (X axis pulse:step/mm)
$101=800.000 (Y axis pulse:step/mm)
$102=800.000 (Z axis pulse:step/mm)
$103=71.110 (A axis pulse:step/mm)
$110=2000.000 (X axis max rata:mm/min)
$111=2000.000 (Y axis max rata:mm/min)
$112=2000.000 (Z axis max rata:mm/min)
$113=8000.000 (A axis max rata:mm/min)
$120=20.000 (X axis acceleration:mm/s^2)
$121=20.000 (Y axis acceleration:mm/s^2)
$122=20.000 (Z axis acceleration:mm/s^2)
$123=20.000 (A axis acceleration:mm/s^2)
$130=400.000 (X aixs max travel:mm)
$131=400.000 (Y aixs max travel:mm)
$132=80.000 (Z aixs max travel:mm)
$133=9999.000 (A aixs max travel:mm)

Thanks Kindly Chris

1 Like
20

Hmm, I’m not sure why bu I’m not seeing you’re controller initializing text at the top like I’d expect, that’s odd. @SOHR which email did you send the information to, I don’t see anything in my inbox