Messages

1

Mach4 General Discussion / Touch Screen vs Probing Screen

« on: February 08, 2018, 11:20:58 AM »

I'm confused by the overlap between these two features of Mach4.  Does calibration performed in the probing screen affect the touch screen?  When would you use one feature over the other?

2

Mach4 General Discussion / Using Both Probe and Tool Setter

« on: January 10, 2018, 10:03:11 AM »

Hi, I was wondering how people recommend wiring a system with both a touch probe and tool height setter.  I have a Pokeys57CNC board which contains only a single probing input.

Should I just put them in Series and "pretend" there is only one probe in software, or is there a better way?

3

Mach4 General Discussion / Multiple Spindles on Independent Z

« on: July 14, 2015, 04:40:22 PM »

I'm currently brainstorming a new router build and avoiding manual tool changes is very important to me.  I was originally looking into purchasing an ATC spindle but quickly discovered that they are often 10-20x more expensive than the regular versions.

This brings me to my current plan, which is to simply attach multiple spindles to independent Z axes.  This way I can run two or three tools per program.  The incremental cost per axis is extremely low with a shared VFD (~$400 vs $3,000+ for an ATC) and the complexity of an ATC can be completely avoided.

I found a brief reference to multiple spindles in the documentation but no concrete information.  Could I get some pointers?

I'd like this system to be transparent to the CAM so that choosing a tool enables the desired axis/spindle and sets the correct work(head?) offset.  I can code.