What do you know. I just finished my "fancy" control box. Contained within : Micro ITX motherboard, fanless, uses a 512meg CF card as a hard drive. Running my custom made embedded windows xp. I have a 18" touch screen as well. Industrial everything proof keyboard. I have a couple of three phase relays inside. On the outside you have all bradley allen switches. One two position switch is for "lathe / mill" mode. When in either mode the VFD and pulse index for that function is transfered. That way I have true rpm referance and control for each mode. All encoders, steppers, and external connections are on seperate 4 pin cannon type plugs. Heavy heat sinks, LCD display for temp readings on the Gecko's. Coolant, spindle, HVAC relays are all within the controller case. Modio is waiting for limit switches...... wish I had a picture.....Hint....
I'm sure you're already experiancing it, but this type of encloser sure isn't cheap. Nice though. I'm really excited to check out some of your pictures.
I'm curious though. I've got 4 axis on my shoptask. What is your 5th? Where did you get it, or how did you make it?
Idea I've been playing with:
Switching the X and Y axis in mill mode. Take the tail stock off and the system resembles and traditional mill. Then switch them back to original for lathe mode. What do you think?  |