Spindle not stopping

Original/PRO Series (Buildbotics) (Gen 1) Troubleshooting (X35/X50)
1

For several carves (with normal behavior between episodes) my spindle did not stop upon completion of the toolpath. I could stop it by hitting my own emergency stop or by turning off power to the VFD. But I could not stop it by activating the E-stop on the Buildbotics controller, nor by activating the “stop” button on the carve.

I am not using any pause commands or “warm-ups”…just a simple Vectric toolpath with one endmill. But when I stopped it with powering-off the VFD, I still couldn’t return the position to XY=0, nor set up for another carve. I had to restart the controller, which meant re-homing. For a carve that has more than one toolpath, that’s a problem. When I examine the G-code, I do see the instruction for ending the rotation of the spindle.

Is this due to the Buildbotics, Vectric, the spindle or the VFD?

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To help diagnose, try a few things…

  1. Double check the VFD isn’t set to manual mode.
  2. Try entering a spindle start (M03), and spindle stop (M05) command in the MDI (Manual Data Input).
  3. Check the cables from the controller to the VFD, perhaps the controller is sending the signal, but it’s not being “heard” by the VFD.

As for the XY thing… it’s possible you are, or the program is, putting the controller into a different “work coordinate system” (WCS). Normally we all use G54, but you might be somehow getting into G55, G56, etc… Entering G54 into the MDI will put you back into G54. When you post code, you might accidentally be posting in G55 - and the first thing the cnc controller will do when executing the program, is switch to G55.

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