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General Mach Discussion / Re: Why is there no effort for the true closed loop control on the mach3 level
« on: January 12, 2011, 07:09:58 PM »
I retrofited am Emco lathe using Mach 3 and it works quite well in an industrial environment. My opinion is that if some aditional money is spent in industrial components such as servos, VFD and a PLC then one can come up with a decent system. Industrial grade servos allow for closed loop (with their drives) and homing using their index pulse. A VFD with braking resistors allow for good spindle control and the PLC is necessary for processing information from sensors, generating alarms and controlling periferal devices such as the hydraulic unit, tool changers, part catchers, bar feeders etc.