Okay,
I think I am in trouble here. I installed a 4th axis stepper motor to drive the extruder. However in looking at how 3D printers work with the G-code output from a slicer, the extruder is run at fixed speed like a spindle. I got the extruder to work as the C axis and can manually jog it just fine. I can also enter a feed and distance and it runs fine. So I thought, okay I need to set up the spindle to be a step and direction type output. However here is the gotcha. I have a Xulifeng USB motion card with a Mach 3 plugin doing the motion control. I don't see any way to get step and direction spindle operation with this card.
If Mach 3 could use the A axis as a spindle it would work. If the motion card could use the 4th axis as the spindle it would work. I don't see any setting to make this happen. Anyne know if this is possible? This also suggests I am screwed when it comes to using my stepper driven lathe as a lathe. It looks like it can be used for positioning, but not for continuous motion.
I have a smooth stepper card and breakout board, but didn't want to go to the effort of installing them at this time. So the question is can the smoothstepper card use a stepper motor as a spindle drive? I thought I was ready to try 3D printing, and now I am really stuck.