E-stop, remote stop

[Airwurthy@aol.com]

Can anyone tell me where the remote e-stop hooks to the control board? I have all the components (I think) but not sure where to put them. Input #4 was suggested to me by a fellow bot owner(Rack and pinion) but did not work on my old cable drive tool. Are they different? Control board-wise? Thanks

[billp]

Skipp, If I remember right the "older"control boxes used numbers such as P1.4,1.5, 1.6, 1.7, instead of 1,2,3,4 for the inputs, so to connect the stop switch you'd use 1.7. P1.4 was for the ZZeroplate, etc. If I'm wrong hopefully someone will correct us both..

[Ted Hall, ShopBot]

Hi Skipp,

Bill has this one right, use P1.7 on the terminal board.

There is a little drawing in the back of your manual that de-codes the pins on the terminal board and indicates how they are numbered in terms of ShopBot Inputs.

[gerald_d]

Bill & Ted, you make it sound simpler than what it really is


My E-stop had four wires coming out of it - you are only telling Skipp what to do with one of the wires. Maybe you should tell him which color goes where, and which wires are not connected at all?

[Airwurthy@aol.com]

Okay, the 1.7 input has nothing hooked to it, I had assumed the e-stop was going to break that connection? Or does some voltage come for somewhere and get broken before going to input 1.7? Thanks

[skipp turner]

P.S. the little drawing(s) in the back of the manual say nothing of stop switches.

[billp]

Skipp, According to my manual you connect the green wire to ground, and the black wire to P1.7. You do NOT use the blue and red wires..

[bill.young]

Skipp,

In theory the input switches work by testing for high or low logic voltage ( 5+ and 0 approximately), but in practice they are usually used by making or breaking the connection to ground.

The E-Stop works like the z-zero plate, which triggers the software input switch when a connection is made between the wire on the plate ( which is connected to the input switch termonal in the control box ) and ground (through the router bit, ShopBot carriage, and ground wire back to the control box).

The ShopBot probe is just the opposite.. the connection to ground is MADE when the probe is not touching anything, and broken when it does.


Hope this helps,

Bill

[Skipp Turner]

Hmmmmm, any other ideas? tried running that input through the switch to ground, shopbot kept on a jogging, tried it in Move too, same results. Any ideas? Thanks for all the ideas so far

[bill.young]

Skipp,

My gut feeling is a bad connection, probably ground , and it's the first thing I would double-check. Is the green wire connected directly to a "gnd" connection on either end of the input switch terminal block in the control box, or is it connected to the tool somewhere so that the ground connection runs through the frame and wheels and all? If it's connected to the tool frame I would connect it to the terminal strip gnd connections and see if that solves the problem. Also make sure that the connection in the input switch terminal block is on bare wire, not on the insulation. Those older terminal blocks are harder to work with ( and see) than the ones in the new boxes.

If that doesn't work I would test the switch to make sure it's working properly. If you have a multimeter you could connect it to the two switch wires and test the resistance; it should be infinite when the switch is not pushed, and go to near zero when it's pushed. If you don't have a meter you could rig up a tester with a battery and a flashlight bulb.

Multimeters are pretty handy things to have around the shop for testing connections and voltages and such, and can be bought at Radio Shack for as little as $15. I bought a small one in a folding case, with a digital display and a continuity buzzer for testing things like the E-Stop switch, for $20 on sale a couple of months ago. I'm really happy with it... it's normally $24.99 and the catalog number is the #22-802

Happy holidays, and good luck tracking down the problem,


Bill

[gerald_d]

Skipp, my cheeky remark at the top of this thread wasn't supposed to give you such bad luck! Sorry


I am nowhere near to our ShopBot, and I can't go and check the accuracy of anything that follows here:

Because I also had problems finding the right terminal, I took a 12" length of scrap wire, connected one end to the ground terminal on the back of the box, then touched the other end briefly to each one of the input terminals until the screen gave the message that the E-stop had been hit. (you should see the inputs lighting up on the top left of your screen as you ground the terminals - if I recall correctly, when input 4 lights up, it also says something about the e-stop?)

The next step was to find out which pair of wires from the E-Stop were connected to a NO (normally open) switch. The easiest way to do this was to open the E-Stop housing and look at the wire colors and the NO / NC markings on the switch. You want the pair from the NO section of the switch. (The switch marking may be a symbolic open contact, rather than the abbreviation "NO")

Now this part may sound completely silly, but you must realise that the E-stop locks itself "in" mechanically once it has been pushed. The knob must be twisted to let it "out" again. I have known people to be confronted by a locked in E-Stop and then they claim that it is broken, because it is not working at all!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS

[Ted Hall, ShopBot]

Okay Skip,

I'm thinking that things have gotten pretty confusing here. But let's try and simplify this a bit.

On your PR style control box. The #4 Input (the stop input) is activated by making the connection between P1.7 and ground. We call this, "pulling it low".

Just check with a little wire, with the ShopBot software running and at the blinking Command Line cursor, make the connection between P1.7 and ground. The #4 indicator on the switch display of the software should become activated ... and you can compare to P1.6, P1.5, and P1.4 which should activate inputs 3, 2, & 1. [The drawing in your manual indicates these input switch numbers, it does not indicate a STOP input because initially, these were not included with PR tools ... but the STOP goes to #4.]

Once you have the inputs working right (and it is possible to blow them out and have other things still work), then have a look at the STOP switch wires. We put two switches in the boxes so that you could use one for an external relay. But to control the ShopBot you use the "normally open" one which is the green and black wire (or it should be the green and black!). Green will then go to ground (for electronic wire color consistency) and black will go to P1.7 (data).

If this does not get you going ... time for a phone call to world headquarters ...

Happy Holidays,

[Skipp Turner]

Thanks guys, turned out to be a poor connection in the contacts. Allen Bradley even, who ever heard of such a thing? Anyways, I think sawdust was a contributor, I hear that wood is a poor conductor, who'd a thunk it, burns good though. thanks everyone !! I love this forum!!

[geobre@aol.com]

Just built a remote and am trying to hook it up. Solved most of the problems, but now I am stuck. My input 3 (1.6) does not work. I tested with ground wire. 1,2 and 4 work fine.
Thankyou for any help.
George