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General Mach Discussion / Two heads
« on: January 10, 2011, 08:50:33 AM »
Hello all
I'm currently building my first CNC router and am planning on using Mach3 to control it. My design is a moving gantry style, however with abit of a twist.
I'm planning on mounting two 'machining heads' onto the Y Gantry. The first head will have my router, the second will probably have a laser diode for burning/etching. Both heads will have separate Y and Z axis steppers but they will share the same X axis.
When 'head A' is in use, 'head B' is parked at one end of the Y gantry out of the working envelope. When I want to tool change I would like to park 'head A' at the other end of the Y gantry (again out of the working envelope) then bring in 'head B' to continue.
So I would need to control 1 X-axis, 2 Y-axis and 2 Z-axis.
Could such an arrangement be possible to control with Mach 3?
Regards
Peter
I'm currently building my first CNC router and am planning on using Mach3 to control it. My design is a moving gantry style, however with abit of a twist.
I'm planning on mounting two 'machining heads' onto the Y Gantry. The first head will have my router, the second will probably have a laser diode for burning/etching. Both heads will have separate Y and Z axis steppers but they will share the same X axis.
When 'head A' is in use, 'head B' is parked at one end of the Y gantry out of the working envelope. When I want to tool change I would like to park 'head A' at the other end of the Y gantry (again out of the working envelope) then bring in 'head B' to continue.
So I would need to control 1 X-axis, 2 Y-axis and 2 Z-axis.
Could such an arrangement be possible to control with Mach 3?
Regards
Peter