Messages

91

General Mach Discussion / Re: PC hardware for mach

« on: January 25, 2008, 02:45:12 PM »

I would say no,  but it might just be barely enough and not very reliable.  Make sure to use a video card and not on board video.

92

Brains Development / Re: Howto send DRO Axis information?

« on: January 24, 2008, 05:10:48 PM »

^^ Could you share the cubloc code to do that?

93

General Mach Discussion / Re: mach3 on kent mill

« on: January 24, 2008, 10:21:42 AM »

Well you have a road a head,  but don't fear it can be done.  Put up some pictures of the motor controllers or are they inside each of the motors?  Also a picture of inside the control box to get a idea of their setup.

94

General Mach Discussion / Re: mach3 on kent mill

« on: January 23, 2008, 11:12:12 PM »

The servo motors are DC brushless,  do the drives take step/direction signals?  If not are you using a step/dir to +/- 10volt converter board?  What breakout board do you have?

Or did you just load Mach3 on a pc and pluged it in to the Servo II controller?  IF yes, that will not work.

95

General Mach Discussion / Re: Inverter Duty Motor

« on: January 23, 2008, 10:41:55 PM »

^ That will work fine, it might be even more safe because the spindle will never turn by it self unless you push the button or switch.

96

General Mach Discussion / Re: motor Drive Board Info

« on: January 23, 2008, 01:33:25 PM »

If their phone is not working then it might be good idea to buy a similar board in case some thing happens latter you can get a new one faster.  Like the one here:
http://cgi.ebay.com/3-AXIS-CNC-Stepper-Stepping-Motor-Driver-Board-kcam4_W0QQitemZ290198979337QQihZ019QQcategoryZ71394QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

97

General Mach Discussion / Brains and Modbus ROCK!

« on: January 22, 2008, 10:53:33 PM »

Got around to play with Plug-in Modbus and Brains today,  got a potentiometer working with FeedOverride  in Mach using CubLoc microcontroller,  a few lines of code in cubloc and a very simple brain and wala it works!

If you want a simple PLC or more I/O's for your project get a CubLoc.

98

General Mach Discussion / Re: using a spindle encoder w/ Mach 3

« on: January 20, 2008, 01:55:03 PM »

1. Mach is made to take one pulse per rev, if you know how to write custom plug-ins for mach that take more pulses thats great! It will help all of us.

2. You might be on to something, it is possible that the encoder goes to the spindle motor controller and keeps a constant speed no matter what the load is until it is too much for the motor,  but I don't know that for sure unless you have some manuals that say that.  You can do a test, buy a cheap tachometer on eBay start the spindle and put some load on the chuck and see if it slows down if not, then great if it does then the encoder has no control of the spindle rpm and is just passed straight to the pc.

99

General Mach Discussion / Re: Motor ratings for dyna 3000 lathe

« on: January 19, 2008, 09:46:08 PM »

If are going to run Geckos just put ~48v to the drives with motors connected run some test program and see if the motors get to warn, if not add more volts if you need more speed or reduce volts if the motors get hot.

100

General Mach Discussion / Re: using a spindle encoder w/ Mach 3

« on: January 19, 2008, 09:40:43 PM »

^What main controller board are you referring to?

What mach needs is one pulse per revolution of the spindle it can be a reflective sensor or inductive proximity sensor that senses a piece of metal.  The signal from the sensor can't be very short so if you are using the reflective sensor and put a 1/16" strip of shiny stuff on the spindle that will probably not work as it will go by to fast for mach to see it.   Another thing with threading and mach you need a motor with some HP, because mach uses one pulse per rev of the spindle if you take a cut and spindle slows down a little mach will take some time to adjust and feed speed to correct for the slower spindle speed and will most likely ruin the thread unless you take a lot of very small cuts.  But if you have at least 1HP motor it will hold the spindle speed nice and steady so you can take some good cuts and have nice threads.  The motor you have now will probably not be the best choice,  it worked with the DOS system because the encoded sent out 100 or more pulses per rev of the spindle so the control software noticed the slightest change in spindle speed and corrected the feed quickly.