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Poll

Closed loop available with Mach 3?

Yes
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No
2 (100%)

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Author Topic: Two Questions About Mach 3  (Read 4514 times)

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Two Questions About Mach 3
« on: February 10, 2009, 04:06:44 PM »
I'm interested in Mach 3.  I have two questions:  

1) Can I use glass scales for closed loop machining feedback during maching.  The manual mentions they can be connected to for manual DRO.  

2) Is there a post-processor available for VisualMill?  I'm considering using this software to convert Solidworks models for machining.

Thanks, Rennie

Offline Hood

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Re: Two Questions About Mach 3
« Reply #1 on: February 10, 2009, 04:13:20 PM »
No, afraid Mach is open loop, if you want closed loop you will need servo drives that are capable of this. You could get the encoder interface from www.rogersmachine.net to use with steppers but it is not true closed loop as it will only halt if steps are missed. A servo system with drives that take feedback will be closed loop as the drives will monitor the encoder feedback and will try their hardest to get the motors to the position that the control (Mach) has told them to be, in the time they have been told to get there. If they cant they will fault and you can set Mach up so that it will know there has been a fault.

Sorry cant help with the visualMill post as I have never used it, Mach uses mainly standard  G-Code/M-codes so Fanuc post processors usually work well, if they dont work just quite right then CAM programmes usually have an editor so that you can alter the processor to suit.
Hood
Re: Two Questions About Mach 3
« Reply #2 on: February 10, 2009, 04:22:10 PM »
Hood: Thanks for the info.   My thought was to use servo motors with auxiliary feedback with the glass scales mounted to the table and quill.  -Rennie

Offline Hood

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Re: Two Questions About Mach 3
« Reply #3 on: February 10, 2009, 04:25:37 PM »
If you have servos then they will already be closed loop, that is unless your drives are the old dumb style analogue amplifiers, then you would need a step/dir converter to use with Mach and that would close the loop anyway.
Hood

Offline ger21

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Re: Two Questions About Mach 3
« Reply #4 on: February 10, 2009, 05:55:34 PM »
Mecsoft has a post for mach3 and Visual Mill.
http://www.mecsoft.com/DownloadPosts.shtml
Gerry

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Re: Two Questions About Mach 3
« Reply #5 on: February 11, 2009, 02:45:39 PM »
VisualMill has an editor for customising post processors so it is fairly easy to use the one posted on the Mecsoft web site or the Mach2 post processor that comes with VisualMill 5 and modify it to suit.  It works well on my 3 axis 2400x1200 router.

Alan