Hi, I have just recently almost completed my conversion of a AMA25LV mill to CNC, and have come upon a problem with the spindle index.

I have my spindle encoder setup (see photo) and it is communicating with mach3.  However it has 16 pulses per revolution (see photo).

I have searched around but am unclear whether mach3 accepts multiple pulses per revolution or just one....

If it is one then I can blank some of the index encoder holes (see photo) and leave only one.  But it would be a shame as I was planning on rigid tapping and blocking up all those holes would loose resolution...

There is a text field in 'Spindle Calibration' for 'number of pulses per revolution' but it is always grey.  Seems strange.

It depends whether you are using the parallel port or an external controller, and if external which one.
With the parallel port then you only have the option of one Index.
With external controllers it is normally only one index as well but some also support full encoders.
Now rigid tapping, if using the parallel port then you are not going to get true rigid tapping, if using an external controller then it may be possible depending on which one.

Hood

You can run the 16 pulses but you will have to compensate in the pulley setup with a 16 to 1 ratio so your RPM will be correct. The real question will be is MACH3 fast enough to read the 16 index counts at higher rpms  , probably not.

Just a thought, (;-) TP