MadMax
03-14-2005, 02:50 AM
Aah. My first try at homebuilt CNC. I've had a fair bit of experience using professional CNC in my previous job as a prototype designer. I've since gone off on my own and am slowly piecing together my own hobby scale CNC.
I've purchased a combo lathe/mill which I hope to CNC so I get a CNC lathe and a CNC mill in the end.
So far I've accumulated most of the hardware, but I'm having a tough time deciding on control software.
Between Mach2, CamSoft, and one or two others, I'm having trouble figuring out which one gives me the features I want. The guys at Camsoft make it sound like their product fits my bill, but it's certainly not cheap. I don't know if I can get the other controllers to do what I want:
-interpret 4 axis GCode
-take input from manual pulse generator (MPG) with axis setting and drive servos accordingly
-limit switch inputs
-provision for linear encoder input
-tool offset library
-precanned routines
So far I've swapped out the fixed speed motors in my machine with VFD induction motors (I got sick of changing pulleys) so I can easily control drive motor speed with a 0-10V signal input. I have 2000pp/rev encoder servos/amps and an ISA motion control card. I've got two ball screws and nuts and I'm working on a mill quill control. I may go with a right angle drive and a linear encoder for closed loop (the quill feed is pretty rough on my machine).
I've purchased a combo lathe/mill which I hope to CNC so I get a CNC lathe and a CNC mill in the end.
So far I've accumulated most of the hardware, but I'm having a tough time deciding on control software.
Between Mach2, CamSoft, and one or two others, I'm having trouble figuring out which one gives me the features I want. The guys at Camsoft make it sound like their product fits my bill, but it's certainly not cheap. I don't know if I can get the other controllers to do what I want:
-interpret 4 axis GCode
-take input from manual pulse generator (MPG) with axis setting and drive servos accordingly
-limit switch inputs
-provision for linear encoder input
-tool offset library
-precanned routines
So far I've swapped out the fixed speed motors in my machine with VFD induction motors (I got sick of changing pulleys) so I can easily control drive motor speed with a 0-10V signal input. I have 2000pp/rev encoder servos/amps and an ISA motion control card. I've got two ball screws and nuts and I'm working on a mill quill control. I may go with a right angle drive and a linear encoder for closed loop (the quill feed is pretty rough on my machine).