In considering the HSE driver boards, some older memories have been dragged up. The HSE board to drive three axes had separate step pathways for each axis, but two of the three direction pathways went to a common terminal. This made only 2.5 D machining possible.
2.5D is as follows if you consider cutting a three sided pyramid, then the cuts for at least two of the base lines will involve changes in the x and y values all the way along the lines. This creates 2 oblique lines and this is known as interpolation. If some height was added to create interpolation with x, y and z changing all the way along the line then full 3D is needed. The early Wabeco would cut in one plane like a slice then there would be separate code for the next slice up and so on until the top of the pyramid was reached. This gives a step sided pyramid rather than a smooth one.
Sawston Steve looked up the application notes of the ICs (chips) involved (look up the IC numbers on the web to see the wiring diagrams) and as I said before altered the circuit board by cutting tracks. However this progressed to a modification which involve removing an IC inserting a linking chip with a board above and hence modifying the board to be fully 3D. This involved little or no soldering. We thought of offering this to distressed Wabeco users stuck on DOS programmes with dongles who wished to use Mach 3, but did not manage to create any awareness of the potential product. (The early Wabeco board was the HSE board)
The product was further refined by adding a box at the back of the control box which had full opto isolation, voltage control, speed control of spindle, spare relays and extra inputs and outputs for Mach 2 as it was at the time.
My Wabeco machine still with it’s HSE boards has full 3D, a fourth axis, a view cam camera attached, Accurite struts which read through the Accurite box and display and then into Mach 3, meaning at least that I have a measuring microscope, spindle speed read out and control via Mach 3 and still have spare inputs and outputs. There are of course 2 parallel ports to handle all this. All this was care of Sawston Steve. He reckons that he has at least one board left. If interested get in touch.
As an aside no one seems to ever mention the fact that if you have a couple of DRO (digital read out) struts from a big machine in a scrap yard ( Steve cut my down to the right length) or a rotary encoder without the read out boxes you can use Mach 3 to read them. Therefore an old computer with Mach 3, a couple of old DRO struts, a view cam and some sort of sliding x. y table and you have a digital measuring machine. Again a rotary encoder attached to the headstock of your lathe, an old computer, mach 3 and essentially you have the basis of a highly accurate rotary measurement device, to cut facets, drill PCD (pitch circle diameters) or cut gears.