Topics

1

General Mach Discussion / Automatic touching

« on: July 27, 2007, 01:18:52 PM »

I was just reading the manual and came to the bit about touching.
It seems timeconsuming and hazardus at best so why not figure out something less prone to breaking a tool than a steel plate.

So I came up with the idea of modifying the digitizing probe.
The same ide but instead of using a shaft with a ball at the end there would be a flat surface cloase to the base. And obviously upside down. This has the benefit over a simple switch that it reacts with off center tools and is more accurate. I have a few other simple ideas for switches as well.

The idea is to mount the sensor at a fixed position on the table so that Mach can be asked move there to compensate for the tool all by itself.

I have not heard of anyone that does this so I thought it would be a nice feature. I would certanly want it.
However I don't even have a CNC mill or router yet to I can't test the idea.

2

General Mach Discussion / Help needed finding stepper driver

« on: June 18, 2007, 11:19:27 AM »

I have two Step-Syn 2.5V 2.1A and two Step-Syn 4.5V 1.8A
All of them is unipolar (6 wires)

It will only be a 3-axis but if it's a 4 axis driver it won't be a bad thing unless it costs a lot.
I want the driver to be as cheap as possible but better expensive than crap.
I have a driver that goes from 5v and up but it's whole step only and won't work for the other two.
I would like atleast half-step to get better accuracy and faster travel.

The rest of the table will be made from bits and peaces in a scrapheap sort of way. Nothing professional. Will be mostly for wood but also for metal.
As it looks now it will be able to work on a 80*80 cm area. It will be screw based on all 3 axis, that is if I can find some. It will be interesting none the less.
And you can expect it to be fully documented in realtime. (aka SLOOOOW)