Machsupport Forum
Mach Discussion => General Mach Discussion => Topic started by: sebba on October 08, 2012, 06:54:55 PM
-
Hello,
I have a 3-axis mill machine, build by myself and for now it is controlled by a Gecko G540 and Mach3.
My X axis use 2 steppers (X and A as slave) and homing switches for all 4 steppers (X, Y, Z, A)
Right now I intend to make some major upgrades at my machine and I want to have 2 steppers for Z-axis (Z and B as slave)
The Y axis will remain with a single stepper. I also want to have homing switches for all steppers
So, after this upgrade, my machine will use 5 drivers for X, Y, Z, A(slave for X), B(slave for Z).
I want to ask if is possible to use a Smoothstepper in combination with 2x G540.
If yes, I suppose an additional rotational axis could be controlled through the C-axis and I'll have a 4-axis milling machine. Is this correct?
Or, there are any better alternatives for this config? For a reasonable price, of course. :)
And for the next level, how can I add the 5th axis having all 6 axis (in Mach3) already allocated? Will have 7 steppers driving a 5-axis machine!?!
Unfortunately I cannot afford servos, at least for the moment. But I need this upgrade (4-axis) asap...
Any advice will be very useful,
Thank you for your time.
Regards,
Seb
-
nobody?? :(
-
You can only have 6 axis and a spindle controlled from Mach and that 6 includes any slaves, Mach4 will likely be different but thats a while away.
As for running two G540 from a Smoothstepper then it shouldnt be a problem, only thing may be the slaved homing but I think any problems with that have been sorted.
Hood
-
thanks Hood, really appreciate it your fast answer
could you also tell me if I can use a second LPT adapter for the second G540? without smoothstepper...
regards
-
Yes you could use a second port instead.
Hood
-
I'm curious, what are the slaves doing/for?
-
When you have two steppers/ballscrews for one axis and do homing, the homing procedure is separate for each stepper
Sent from my HTC Vision using Tapatalk 2