Tangential control of tool with DeskCNC?

[krumly]

I'm new to CNC, and am looking at building a "pizza wheel" fabric cutter.
You're basically looking at a standard 2.5 axis router type set-up and a rotary head to keep the pizza wheel cutter tangent to the curve (or in-line with the incremental straight line segment cuts, if you will). Z-axis control is dirt simple - basically a "pen up/pen down" operation like a pen plotter.

Does DeskCNC, either the windows +controller board or DOS version support tangential control of the cutting head? Anyone have any experience with this? What if I wanted my tool head to contain both the rotary pizza wheel cutter as the primary tool , along with a retractable pen adjacent to it so I could switch over to cloth marking or plotting on the fly?

Thanks,

krumly

[erase42]

if no one ever answered you, mach3 or soon mach4 can handle that quite well. with a special addition to sheetcam that Less? is it, made for me that causes the cutter to orient the right direction BEFORE it touches down made a perfect setup for my use. its been a while so maybe corrections have been made with the mach software. have a look, its good stuff.

[Adobe Machine]

Best suggestion is to download the free 30 day trial version, the instruction manual and the information on the DeskCNC controller board which speaks for itself. This systems runs on most Windows, & will process 300 blocks/sec, Accel is programable from 60 to 125,000 sps, +- 2 billion step absolute positioning and continuous motion contouring. Programable Mist, flood, CW , CCW Aux 1.2, 3 and PWM for the spindle speeds. Has single channel Quadrature encoder input. True 4 axis interpolation, and look ahead for accel and decell. At present I'm running two machines on Desk CNC, have yet to have any problems I did not create myself ( Klutz, Newbie).You can download from imserv@imsrv.com.

I did have some trouble with the accel ramps at first, but after reading the instructions (dah uh) and doing them correctly, it can haul a__. The software has CAD/CAM with drill, bore and threading cycles, and will import most type of CAD files.

Adobe (old as irt)

[erase42]

old as "irt"? you are slipping on us Krumley had asked about tangential control of a 4th axis. I too use desk cnc on my machine, but as far as ive ever seen, it provides no way to do this. It will operate the 4th axis, if the g code is provided, but you cant create that tangential information with it. the Mach software will create the 4th axis rotational info "on the fly" i guess by comparing the x and y values and determining the actual direction of travel. It will also raise and lower the tool if any particular angle change is greater than a specified amount so that you dont twist off or bend your tool. Less, of sheetcam fame created some sort of post or addition for either mach or sheetcam, its been so long i dont recall, but whatever it was improved the overall operation of the system 100%. Anyway im not really meaning to bore you with the explanation, and the original post is probably too old to still be valid. I just remember how extremely happy i was to see everything working exactly as i needed it to for once. so im reliving it for you

[Adobe Machine]

erase42..yep, those funny pills for pain sure do not help my typing..along with a little klutsy anyway..Be that as it may, I'm just courious about this and will pursue through both carken and Mr Fred at IM Service, as so far there has never been a question he could not answer ...

Thats really cool how your situation was resolved. Do you use your 4th axis a lot ? Is it stepper or servo powered ? Thanks for the comments.

Adobe (old as dirt)

[InspirationTool]

It sounds like you would be alot better off with Mach 3, ESPECIALLY as it can calculate the knife rotation for you. That means you can just use regular G code.

I have DeskCNC now, and while it works, I wish I had Mach 3.

-Jeff

[ger21]

Originally Posted by InspirationTool I have DeskCNC now, and while it works, I wish I had Mach 3. -Jeff

Mach3 is free for up to 1000 lines of g-code. Although the tangential function may not work unless you register it. Not sure on that.

[InspirationTool]

Originally Posted by ger21 Mach3 is free for up to 1000 lines of g-code. Although the tangential function may not work unless you register it. Not sure on that.

It's only free if you don't have to buy a new breakout board and re-wire your controller

The older DeskCNC board runs only on a serial port. The newer one also runs on USB. Supposedly, Art is working on a Mach - USB - DeskCNC board system.

I have the older board.

-Jeff