Messages

21

Mach3 under Vista / Re: laptop to parallel

« on: November 07, 2010, 05:21:29 PM »

exactly, an external hardware takes care of the critical timing and keeps the motors running smooth!

22

Mach3 under Vista / Re: laptop to parallel

« on: November 05, 2010, 02:50:06 AM »

This is from the Mach3 specifications:

   " * Desktop PC (if using the Mach3 Parallel Port Driver - laptops are not supported because the power saving features of the chipsets disrupt the pulse stream, PCMCIA and USB parallel adaptors will *not* work.)"

An external card is mandatory with a laptop.

23

Modbus / Re: arduino mega to mach3 prototype

« on: October 30, 2010, 01:53:34 PM »

Really nice work! My system is in 1k pieces at the moment but I'll try it out sometime when its back online.

24

General Mach Discussion / Re: Anyone here tried dual spindles on their machine?

« on: October 28, 2010, 03:33:41 PM »

Thank you kf2qd for a very informative post, i am a newbie and really appreciate that you take the time to explain this!

ASC, I would love to hear/see some more details about your machine and about the YAG!

25

General Mach Discussion / Re: Anyone here tried dual spindles on their machine?

« on: October 28, 2010, 09:03:23 AM »

Thanks,

Lets say I want to mill the holes and laser engrave text on a front panel in one job, how do I control which "spindle" is active from Mach or the CAM program?

26

General Mach Discussion / Anyone here tried dual spindles on their machine?

« on: October 26, 2010, 06:54:29 PM »

Hi, this might be a basic/stupid question but I can not find anything on the forum or in the manual about this.

I'm thinking of mounting a router and a laser on separate slides instead of just one Z-axis. Would the second one become "A", "B" or "C" or is it possible to switch "Z"?
Anyone tried something like this?

27

Third party software and hardware support forums. / Re: Compatible servo drives

« on: October 26, 2010, 05:41:54 AM »

A industrial quality servodriver that supports almost every input format is Granite devices VSD-E, hobby price and pro features in my opinion.
http://www.granitedevices.fi/ (Not affiliated, just a happy customer!)
Some Berger-Lahr servo and high voltage 3-phase stepper drivers also accept step/dir, good german stuff that somtimes can be had cheap.

28

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: New people welcome !! Come in here and introduce your self!

« on: October 25, 2010, 09:33:53 PM »

Hi,

My name is Daniel and I live in Stockholm, Sweden.
Me and a friend started building a fixed portal cnc mill a few years ago but we never finished and recently I got some new an much needed inspiration from Tweakie on this forum and decided to take the machine to my workshop and get it up and running before new year!
I also have a EMCO Compact 5 cnc that needs converting to Mach in the future and I just talked my boss at work into buying a small desktop moving gantry machine to do PCB and front panel engraving... so I guess I will have my CNC-hands full for a while!
I'm mainly an electronics guy and have some learning to do on the mechanical side so expect stupid "how do I align this to that"-type questions!

29

Show"N"Tell ( Your Machines) / Re: The Laser Project.

« on: October 22, 2010, 03:26:02 PM »

Wow, nice! You are always on the cutting edge!

30

SmoothStepper USB / Re: What breakout board to use with Smoothstepper?

« on: October 15, 2010, 05:23:11 AM »

Thanks! The 126 look good!