Stepper Motors

[Farmers Machine]

On a simple 2 axis machine using stepper motors. do you have to have a galil card? or does Cam Soft talk straight to the stepper box?
Thanks
The Farmer

[Karl_T]

Camsoft sells a stepper box pretty inexpensively. The offer is on their website.

Karl

[Farmers Machine]

I want to add a plasma torch and torch height controller to the oxy fuel gantry . It is a retrofitted ESAB PUMA that came out of a steel mill in Canada. CAM SOFT PRO, with XP. It has 3 ESAB torch carriers/height controlers for oxy fuel torches. all it has now is a small DC motor to adjust the torch up and down using a DC box and a joy stick. I need something higher speed to turn the Acme rod that would act like a Z axis with out having to buy a new Galil card with aditional axis, I would like to machine a plate on roller guides and a micro switch to mount the plasma torch to and then have some sort of program or macro to move the torch to the surface of metal to be cut, when the torch starts to ride up on the roller plate as the torch is lowering down, it will break the limit switch. This will be Z zero. raise the torch to the corect pierce height, dwell for pierce and then take over voltage adjustment until the cut is finished, and then raise for clearance, Is this just a dream or a bad nightmare?
Thanks
The Farmer

[Farmers Machine]

The gantry now has servo motors on the X and Y axis. Each side of the X axis gantry move together, X master and X slave using 2 axis spots on the Galil card. Y axis is only 1 servo motor. my question is can CAM SOFT move a stepper motor on the torch height control with out having to go through a Galil axis. or what would be the best way to control the torch up and down to cut across corugated sheet metal at 50 to 100 IPM. It gets better. My wife wants to get into the metal art business and use the CNC gantry torch when it is not doing real work. Something about togetherness and comunication, since I live in the shop.
Thanks
The Farmer

[Karl_T]

I don't see how you could do this without a Galil axis. Why don't you shop eBay for a card? They go for 1/4 of new. Then sell the one you surplussed. Shouldn't cost more than $200 to upgrade. Only buy from somebody that promises no DOA.

Sounds like you'll be using Camsoft to do the torch height control algorithym. The torch voltage will have some nasty spikes and noise that will trash your galil card. You'll need a good isolation DC voltage transducer with some inductance to filter out high frequency noise.

I'm no marriage counseler, but a wife in the shop is like a man in the kitchen. Don't work at my house.

Karl

[Karl_T]

Originally Posted by Karl_T ... Sounds like you'll be using Camsoft to do the torch height control algorithym. The torch voltage will have some nasty spikes and noise that will trash your galil card. You'll need a good isolation DC voltage transducer with some inductance to filter out high frequency noise. ... Karl

I was cruising fleaBay and seen this:
NEW OHIO SEMITRONICS DC VOLTAGE TRANSDUCER VTH-008EY01 | eBay

just what you need to read torch voltage into a galil card. Use a 500 ohm resistor to convert 4-20 mAmp to 0-10 volt.

Karl