i am building a 3feet by 6feet cnc router using a xylotex 3 axis drive this will be my first cnc i am using thomson pillow blocks on plain 1inch steel rod 3\8 16 threaded rod can any one help with stepper motor slection and any other problems and what is the best software to use that will work for a novice i have been testing turbo cnc for a week and i just dont understand it

What sort of trouble are you having with Tuebocnc? We will beay be able to help.

Without a machine to use, or even motors to run, there is really nothing you can do with TurboCNC. You load a g-code program into it, and it will run your motors. Since you have no motors, what are you testing?

Are you using the rod unsupported? On a 6ft span, it's going to sag quite a bit.

I think you'd be a lot better off to start out with a smaller sized machine for your first one.

you could also hook LEDs upto the outputs, and switches to the inputs. that way you can understand what it does. keep in mind, the general process is this:

1-Design parts in CAD\drawing AP
2-import into CAM program for 3D parts, or right into controller program for 2d DXFs
3-the program controls the motors through the parallel port.

if you want to really understand, get the cheapest stepepr driver and stepper you can find. then learn to control it. there are plenty of resources.

cheapest stepper driver i have seen:http://www.mpja.com/productview.asp?product=8479+KT

dont use this driver for your CNC though. use it to learn. your real drivers will cost at least $40 each

www.xylotex.com is the smallest driver you could possibly use for a 3x6 table. 3x6 tables often cost 4,000 or more for good reason. who wants a 6 foot table if it takes 5 minutes to cross the thing...

i have the drive hook to a laptop with some 80oz japan servo stepper motors and when i use ace converter and try to run the txt file in turbo i wont run automaticl

the rod is only supported at the ends

Do you have at least a 12V power supply hooked up to the Xylotex? Do the motors lock up when you turn on the power supply? Try running single lines of code in the MDI screen. If that works, try running some of the sample g-code programs that come with TCNC

its hooked up to 24volt 4.5 amp power supply

is it right to infer that you have seen it move from the jog commands from turbocnc?

yes but some of theaxis on jump back and forth

Natchez,

You have PM.

John

what does that mean

That means private message.

If the motor jumps back and forth like that you need to go into "axis setup" in turbocnc and decrease your values for
1) Max start speed
2) Max speed
3)Acceleration

Start realy low and work up.
Save to the .INI file each time.
Hope this helps

Natchez,

I sent you a Private Message. Go to the bottom of this page and click on the little down arrow by the "Forum Jump:" box. Scroll up to the top and click on Private Message. Didn't want to get too off topic. Just says I live in Vicksburg. My email is jbyrne39056@cs.com. Shoot me an email. Just starting out so have a long way to go. Will have to have you come up when I finally get mine done.

Cheers
John