handwheels controlling motors?

[bbeide]

Hello, I am looking for a hobby/light industrial cnc mill. I have read many of the posts decribing various choices to try to educate myself. One post decribed a cnc machine that could be controlled "manually" by using the handwheels to control the motors......is this normal?.....what machines use this method?.....does it work well?

THanks ben

[PixMan]

I don't know how the home-built machines have been doing it, but the nicest setup I'd seen to date was on a Deckel FP2CNC machine. When you pushed the handles in to engage the face spline (don't know what it's really called), the handles hit a switch that killed power to the axis servos and put the axis in manual mode.

Being on ball screws though, you had to be sure to put a little drag on the binder levers or you could risk having the axis get sucked right into a tool.

[bbeide]

The one I read about basically had the 2 handwheels connected to the computer.....I doubt if there was a physical connecton to the table.

[RICHARD ZASTROW]

MPG's? Manual Pulse Generators Deckel used (uses) them as well. I didn't tell the guys who refused to run NC machines about them. They thought they were operating really smooth manual machines with digital readout's.

I think they are used on most machines now in manual mode (MDI). Select axis, increment and start cranking.

Dick Z