Is there a way to create a virtual axis using Mach 3 & a SmoothStepper control card? The material that we using slips when it is advanced. We would like use a encoder to measure the material's actual advancement.

Ken I am not sure what you mean by virtual axis BUT you can bring the encoder into MACH3 and display the actual measure of motion. You can then compare the 2 values , Mach3 axis and encoder motion value.

SO I F the material slips on your conveyor where are you going to attach the encoder ? To the material

(;-) TP

Yes, we were going to use a wheel attached to the encoder. The material will spin the wheel as it is indexed. We thought that we could used the MPG/Spindle synch encoder input on the SmoothStepper board. But that is about as far as we got. Lack of knowledge in the software got in the way.