Greetings, I've got a couple questions about Mach3 for my new CNC. I build a CNC in 2007 and it works pretty well but I'm almost done building a new one. On the old CNC I was using KCam and it worked okay but I could never get the machine up and running really quick, mainly on the Z axis. Now my new machine appears to have the same malady with the Z axis.
So, I'm looking to switch everything to Mach3 and I want to understand what I'm getting into.
So my new machine is running nema 34 motors. I'm running dual 960 oz/in motors on the X axis with 444 steps/in with rack and pinion gears. Y axis is a single 960 with same rack and pinion setup. Z axis is a 640 oz/in motor driving a 10 TPI Acme thread with 20000 steps/in.
I've got a new (refurbished) Win7 pro desktop computer with a 2.7 dual core Pentium processor & 4 gig ram. Currently I'm feeding the signal to a Max32 (Kcam stepper controller) that is feeding 4 G203V Gecko Drives (one for each motor, X axis motors spinning in opposite to each other).
So I've got 2 questions.
First, can Mach3 put out enough steps to get me 20"/min on the Z axis? Basically I'd like to move 1" in about 3 seconds.
Second, I figure if I make the switch, I'll have to pull the Max32 board and go with something else so I'd like some suggestions. I was looking at this board on Amazon which says it'll work with Mach3.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CY42VM0/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=VO2MNMCY8AQ9&coliid=I3LBQ7XFX3TY3B Any help is appreciated.
Thank you,
Hylan