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MACH3 - 4th Axis Readout
« on: July 06, 2019, 07:13:48 AM »
I'm running a Sieg KX1 with the 4th axis enabled.   Mach 3 recognises the 4th axis stepper (drives a rotary table) two Newbie questions;

a) How do I get the Mach 3 main screen to show the axis position in degrees and;
b) What's the best hobby level CAM software to drive the 4th axis?

My setup is a dedicated Dell Optiplex desktop running XPSP3 with networking disabled (i3 processor 4GB RAM 250GB HDD).    The apps are Mach 3 (As locked down by Arceurotrade) and CUT2D.

All works really well - should have go into this years ago!

Just want to progress with getting to grips with the 4th axis.

Best regards

Steve
Re: MACH3 - 4th Axis Readout
« Reply #1 on: July 15, 2019, 08:55:57 AM »
Well I solved a) !    It's just a case of calibrating the axis in the Mach3 config screen.   What's really cool is that my manual mill is next to my CNC,  so I can mount the rotary table on the manual mill and use Mach 3 to drive it!

So all I need now is to find a s/w package that can recognise/utilise the axis for G-code output. 

Regards

Steve

Offline RICH

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Re: MACH3 - 4th Axis Readout
« Reply #2 on: July 15, 2019, 08:26:03 PM »
Steve,
Just some information on configuration.

In Config >General Logic your rotary should be configured as angular.
The motor tuning units are steps per degrees for an angular rotary axis.

NOTE:
Ignore the linear check boxes.
The checkbox for linear/angular only tells an axis not to convert when switching from mm to inch, other than that it has no purpose.
A, B and C are always rotary axis and the DRO shows in terms of degrees.

Example for calculating motor tuning:
For my rotary using micro stepping and a 72 gear ratio:
200 steps / rev X 1 rev /360 degrees = .5555 steps / deg X 10 micro steps X 72 gear ratio=400 steps per unit

RICH

Re: MACH3 - 4th Axis Readout
« Reply #3 on: July 18, 2019, 06:23:20 AM »
Grand Rich,  thank you.

Steve

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Re: MACH3 - 4th Axis Readout
« Reply #4 on: July 19, 2019, 05:55:03 AM »
 Steve,
You may find this thread interesting on the 4th axis.
Maybe start at reply #46 in the thread ........

http://www.machsupport.com/forum/index.php/topic,35906.msg245747.html#msg245747

RICH
« Last Edit: July 19, 2019, 06:00:48 AM by RICH »