Estop

Axis must do it by default as I don't recall having to do any latching when I was stuck with dealing with the GUI estop for Axis.  But admittedly, Axis and QtPlasmaC are the screens I have the most experience with.  Well and Pathpilot, but that's a whole other thing lol.  Thankfully I've the option to not use the GUI Estop with QtPlasmaC.

Honestly, its so long ago since I set up my machine, I can't remember but I thought it was required. estop-latch is very useful where you have multiple etops or guard interlocks etc as it can chain them together in Hal. And also for sending a reset signal to a safety relay if you use one. But thats another whole other thing too!

Does pathpilot require pressing an estop button in the GUI?
I still use the screen based button and external estops with qtplasmac.
I did ask an engineer how fanuc and other commercial controllers enabled a machine and he said they always required a GUI control to be pressed so I kept the functionality. My pressbrake doesn't but you do have to turn a switch on to restart the machine if you do press estop. 

rodw wrote:

Does pathpilot require pressing an estop button in the GUI?

They have a "RESET" button, which will do nothing until you un-trip the Estop and press the green button to latch the relay and power on the controller. Once you do that, you can click RESET, and the GUI will control the machine. Pressing RESET again has no effect. The only way to estop the machine is by pressing the physical e-stop. If one estopped the machine they would have to repeat the process to bring it out and re-home, etc.

So technically their RESET button is neither an estop nor the power button we are all used to.

I still use the screen based button and external estops with qtplasmac.

I know a lot of people like them, but a software estop is a bad idea (IMHO). The "muscle memory" should be to hit the estop button and it should be wired to stop the machine movement immediately. But I know a lot of people like the software GUI Estop, so to each their own I suppose.

I did ask an engineer how fanuc and other commercial controllers enabled a machine and he said they always required a GUI control to be pressed so I kept the functionality.

Sounds similar to tormach honestly. It wouldnt surprise me if they borrowed stuff from fanuc.

Sounds like Tormach is using  a safety relay in conjunction with estop-latch in hal.
Thats the behaviour I get with a safety relay. I had decided I needed a green button like yours to avoid powering off the machine to allow it to be restarted.

rodw wrote:

Sounds like Tormach is using  a safety relay in conjunction with estop-latch in hal.
Thats the behaviour I get with a safety relay. I had decided I needed a green button like yours to avoid powering off the machine to allow it to be restarted.

Of sorts, I guess. It's a magnetic contactor (a form of relay, I know) which is latching due to the way they have it wired. They just use the contactor to provide power to the works. I put the schematic below if you or anyone else is curious (it's from their publicly available manual, so nothing proprietary here).

I will be using the mill today, and I want to upgrade to their latest, which requires adding my encoder mods back into their various files again, so I'll have a look to see if they have any estop latching in hal.

The thing that I always thought was interesting about Tormach, that I never ventured down the path of "how do they pull that off" is that you can launch Pathpilot without any power to their "machine control board" (ahem, proprietary Mesa board). Where LCNC will fail in this case due to the pins not existing, the only ramification with a Tormach is that you wont be able to click RESET.