Topics

1

General Mach Discussion / removing mach3 driver

« on: August 09, 2008, 01:49:44 PM »

I just installed mach3 for the 1st time and didn't think to ask if I needed the driver or not when using mach with the dspmc/ip plugin.  Apparantly I don't so I figure I should remove it since it's supposed to be a burden on the system.  Anybody know how to do that?  I'm contemplating just doing another clean install of xp.

2

General Mach Discussion / 4th axis rotary table control

« on: March 15, 2008, 11:26:45 AM »

What all do people consider when choosing their motors and encoders?  Is the idea to match your resolution and max feed rate at the max diameter of the rotary table with that of the rest of the mill?

I'm setting up my 1st cnc mill ( show n tell thread here: http://www.machsupport.com/forum/index.php/topic,3990.0.html ) and immediately after getting it's current goodies running I'm adding a rotary table to it.  I already have a large, brand new camco rotary table for the job.  Right this second I don't remember how large since I've had it and the mill sitting while I've been busy finishing a couple masters degrees which I just finished (sitting somewhere else or yes I would go look, lol).  I've been collecting up the parts the last couple weeks to go ahead with this project and now that I have the parts for the x,y, and z  I'm starting to think about the rotary table.

What I'm looking for here is advice from people who have rotary tables or are very familiar with their set up.  Hopefully someone can put me on the right track and tell me what I need to know to do it to full advantage.  Precision and finish quality requirements on the parts I'll maching on the rotary table will be very high.  The camco rotary table is set up to be able to be used in a gang set up so it has both a servo motor mount and an output shaft  so I have plenty of places to mount encoders if they aren't integral to the servo motor.  I am using servo motors by the way.  I have a galil 2160 controller and am using 110V 5.9A 1800RPM DC servo motors with a 60V power supply, 1000 line encoders with indexes, and 5 tpi precision ground ball screws.  The gears in the camco rotary table are 30 to 1.  I'm going to guess my rotary table is 12" if not it's 10.  What all do people consider when choosing their motors and encoders?  Is the idea to match your resolution and max feed rate at the max diameter of the rotary table with that of the rest of the mill?

I know on the galil control I can set the home routine to look only for the index and not worry about a home switch.  Is this how homing a rotary table is normally accomplished?

3

General Mach Discussion / Thread Milling hardware requirements?

« on: March 13, 2008, 07:31:56 PM »

So I'm setting up my first cnc mill.....
and I want it to be able to do thread milling...
What are the hardware requirements?

I'm assuming I need good spindle location feedback like an indexed encoder, correct?  What about spindle speed control?  I don't know; that's why I'm asking.

Thanks in advance

4

Forum suggestions and report forum problems. / plugins: galil, ncpop, smooth stepper, grex g100

« on: March 09, 2008, 02:52:05 PM »

I'm setting up a machine to run with mach and have been trying to make informed hardware choices to work well with mach mill.  Unfortunately there isn't any current information on the status of ANY of the plugins to interface with devices that do the timining externally and alow interfacing through usb or ethernet.

I don't know, maybe nothing has changed in the last year but it's been long enough since any updates have been made that it seems reasonable to ask and receive an answer.  This is really a suggestion more than a complaint so please take the tone as a playful poke not an irate rant.  I'm just posting in every way in every place I can reasonably think of since my requests/efforts thus far have not produced a helpful response.

5

NC Pod / ncpod plugin is final..is ncpod done?

« on: March 07, 2008, 12:06:12 AM »

I have a large mill with lots of switches and relays and I'm putting a vfd on the spindle motor and I'd really like to run it with mach on a laptop with usb.  I see the ncpod plugin is listed as a final full version on the artsoft website but I can't find the ncpod anywhere to purchase it.

I also saw in the development thread that there was a timing issue with the beta units.  Was that fixed and there is now a fully functional ncpod available for purchase somewhere?

6

Show"N"Tell ( Your Machines) / Ex-Cell-O Spindle Wizard to retrofit

« on: August 17, 2007, 11:42:28 PM »

I just got an Ex-Cell-O Spindle Wizard mill to retrofit.  It's a large machine with 40" x 20" travels on the table and 5" on the quill.  The table slides on tubular ways/linear guides.  It has 5 tpi precision ground ballscrews all around.

The original control was a bandit hooked up to siemens drives and motors with tachometers and resolvers.  I'm looking for new motors with encoders but the motors are Nema 42 and the places I know of like homeshopcnc, etc don't seem to have anything larger than Nema 34.  I've found some Nema 42 steppers but I much prefer the idea of getting servo motors.  Does anybody know of a source for Nema 42 servos fitting a home cnc retrofit budget?

I'm also considering picking up ac servo motors and drives off of ebay.  It seems like there are more comercial systems that use ac servos for motors of this size.

The overal plan is: mach on dell's latest pc model on sale -> grex -> new drives -> new motors

I figure with the grex I'll be able to hook up all of the limit and home switches as well as the air controled devices like the mist coolant, spindle brake, spindle lock, back gear, and speed control.