George
Our EZTRAK is single wire Z axis servo with Accu-Rite DRO scale and the outrigger arm drive spindle - it was purchased as 3 axis and (surprise) we never got any retrofit offer for the Z which we surely could use now!!!. Expecially since we're G code moving the axis and we're psuedo profile milling and feedback sucks on Z for reasons you cited.
In researching the system for to fix a gremlin elsewhere, some service people sent us the schematics for the AUXBOB and AXSBOB cards and pinouts for the BMDC card. SOme interesting observations.
All three items mentioned were configured for 4 axis plus spindle speed control. They simply didn't stuff the cards fully with the parts needed or didn't install the proper proms needed to make the BMDC in 'TRAK talk like it was envisioned.
Essentially, the EZTRAK was hard and software throttled so it could not do 3 & 4 axis ala properly. The chips and hard logic were there as they supposedly used/were planning to use the BMDC card on low and high end machines with some or all of the features.
Alas, BPT went under and development ceased. Some of the stuff was supposedly included in ver 7 of the O/S but it was buggy and never officially released. Oh, what could have easily been 10 years ago that Hardinge/BPT is just now trying to exploit..... Go figure.  |