Dewalt DWP611 relay problem (Workaround found - Possible Easel Problem or Bug)

X-Carve
1

I have a strange issue on my hands that I cannot seem to find much info on.

I bought the 611 along with the digital loggers relay that is popular on this forum.

I setup the relay and when I get to the “Test the spindle” screen during the machine setup the relay turns the router on and off perfectly however, when I get to the “Turn the spindle on” button when setting up a carve the spindle does NOT come on. The light on the relay (switch active) comes on however I do not hear the relay switch the power on like I do during the machine setup step. The “Normally Off” switches on the relay continue to give 0 volts when checked with a meter.

I first thought the relay may be bad but that would not explain why it works every time when I got to the Machine Setup screen. I have verified that the wires connecting to the relay are getting 54 volts when I press the button to start the router in both the “Machine Setup” & “Turn on the spindle” screens. The wires running to my relay are connected to the S- and S+ on the arduino.

EDIT After more troubleshooting the wires are getting 54v during the machine setup screen and only 6.6v on the carve screen when I select the dewalt router option. This is most likely the source of the problem since the relay requires 12v AC to activate.

Has anyone else had this issue? If so, how did you fix it?

Thanks a ton.

2

The plot thickens… If I run the machine setup and select the default spindle (not the 611) the problem goes away and the relay works as expected. This seems to be an issue with easel (bug?) I am guessing this has something to do with the PWM wiring and the pin for the spindle not being activated when using the 611 but I have no way to be sure.

3

If Dewalt turning on on the machine setup, means your wiring is good. Before sending anything from easel, check the spindle RPM on the screen. If it is very low, this time you’re not sending enough power to relay unit. Make it higher. Just try. Let us know if it doesn’t work.

4

Thank you for the reply. It’s a voltage problem for sure. Easel does not send the required voltage to the relay (via the S- and S+ terminals on the arduino when the 611 is selected during the machine setup. The workaround I am using is to select “Other” on the machine setup screen and input a spindle speed of 20,000 which is about what I run my 611 at.

1 Like
5

Did you go into the GRBL config and disable spindle PWM? You know, did you set it up to output On/Off only?