PCNC440 spindle reverse

Hello again,
I have question about modifying Pathpilot. I have a Tormach 440 mill and a friend has been able to enable reversed spindle rotation with a simple wiring modification. He uses, however, Mach3. Does anyone know how to go about enabling spindle reverse in Pathpilot? There is no “reverse” button on the main screen for the 440. I suppose, with the wiring change, it will probably be possible to reverse the spindle in the code but a REV button would be nice to have.
Thanks, Scot

Hey again

First issue your going to run into is you have 2 outputs left on your controller which we used for the 4th axis. if you want this you're going to have to get the 2nd port on the 5i25 over to the controller cabinet and add a breakout board (simple one) then it's doable.

this is high level again

from what I see the BLDC Drive has a F/R input that is not hooked up. (can you get a pic of the BLDC drive so we can see what model it is to get it's details?)

you would then wire that to the 2nd port of the 5i25 thru the break out board,

you would hook that up in the HAL for the spindle and using motion.spindle-forward if not already in the HAL. something like.

net spindle-cw motion.spindle-forward => hm2_[HOSTMOT2](BOARD).0.gpio.005.out

we'd change 1.gpio.00X to use the other port and which ever gpio you want

all the mills use the same gui so we just have to enable the reverse button
looking at the code,, they just hide the rev button (for the 440) and the code that it runs is the same and just issues a M4

should be fairly easy i would think

Ok, i played for a few minutes.
here you go as far as the GUI goes
Works in SIM ok

Thank you, again, for the help! Sounds a little challenging for me but perhaps I can manage to figure it out.
I have tried to determine what the spindle drive is but have been unable to confirm. I did open the back panel on my machine but without taking it all apart, was not able to find a model number. The guys on Facebook say it’s something similar to this:
www.dt-me.com/products_details/100.html

Is there a tutorial on how to access and utilize the HAL configuration? I’m unfamiliar with Linux.

Thanks!

That drive does look like the one in the schematic so it's a start.

The Hal part wont be that hard. most of it's already there you just have to tell it it to connect the Fwd/Rev to which GPIO then hook that GPIO to your board.
that's what the
net spindle-cw motion.spindle-forward => hm2_[HOSTMOT2](BOARD).0.gpio.005.out
does
add that to the tormach_mill_mesa_440.hal file in the spindle section

example if you use GPIO 1 on the 2nd port I believe
net spindle-cw motion.spindle-forward => hm2_[HOSTMOT2](BOARD).1.gpio.001.out
would do it

you can google linuxcnc hal tutorial or start here linuxcnc.org/docs/html/ and look for the hal section

Just a note for those trying this there is ALSO a spindle reverse block in the spindle INI file that blocks a reverse function. You would have to comment out that line. It is something like" Spindle_Reverse = NO".

Just a thought, ( TP