I am just getting started, and in doing so, I have been using the Mill screen. My next step after this, will be to switch to the Lathe Screen, which as yet, I don't completely understand.
I am working with a home-brew lathe and matching X/Y plotter, originally built to run under MS/DOS with toolpaths written in BASIC, which operate the stepper motor controllers directly.I have rewired the stepper controllers and now I am switching to Mach3 in an effort to use industry standard methods.
Everything that is to be done on the lathe, can be emulated on the plotter, and the drawings that the plotter produce are to scale, so it becomes a good test platform for developing profiles. With the plotter in mind...
I have Motor (spindle) control. On/Off, single speed, single direction, just as it should be for this equipment. (on the plotter, Spindle On/Off? raises/lowers the pen). M-Code M3 and M5 also work properly.
I have Jog, and I can regulate feed-rate for the lead screws and the "Fnnnn" parameters for P-Code "G01" work as expected.
My Lathe has a pneumatic (in/out) extender for the tail stock. The tail stock can be pulled back to face off the end of a piece, then extended to push a live center into the work. I need to figure out how to add a button to control this and help with a P-Code or M-Code to operate the tail stock. Could someone please point me in the right direction? I am using Output #2, pin #8 , Port #1 for this operation. I have a simple parallel port monitor, and if I toggle Bit#6 (parallel pin #8) I can toggle the "Tailstock" LED on the plotter, so I know the pin is working.
The Mach3 program is simply awesome! My plotter makes drawings that are exactly to scale, and repeatable. I have re-traced some plots twenty times and the plotter never misses a lick. When running the old BASIC programs under DOS, the program "stepped" the motors directly and would occasionally skip a beat, particularly at higher feed rates.