Anyone running Mach\Gecko's in a commercial shop?

[jsatter]

I have a SM1 Hurco cnc knee mill that I am planning on retrofitting. My original plan was to go with an Ajax control which is a closed loop system. Is anyone here running a similar mill with Mach and Gecko's in a shop making parts for customers , not just as a personal hobby machine? I am more concerned about accuracy and stability with the system.
Thanks

[howling60]

We run Mach3/geckos on a BP seriesII here in our shop, www.umaine.edu/amc and we just sold our BP series 1, which was running mach3/geckos on steppers, only sold because one of our customers liked the machine alot, and thought they should have it .

We are also running our in-house-built plasma table on mach3/geckos on steppers with a pair of axis slaved for gantry movement.

Accuracy, good enough for the work we do (we do alot of proto-typing and one-offs for companies in the state). Stability, perfectly stable (as long as you don't count the computers fruiting once in a while due to old hardware).

We did a retrofit on a 4-axis CNC stone cutting saw for a local company in the last year. They run it every day all day. granted, the accuracy factor is a little different there, but stability is no issue with them.

If you would like any other info, please feel free to email me.

-nate

[DSL PWR]

I don't mean to hi-jack the thread, but howling, how did you slave the axis on the gantry?

[ger21]

I'm guessing Mach3's slaving function.

[howling60]

Originally Posted by ger21 I'm guessing Mach3's slaving function.

what ^ they said...

inside the configuration menus on MACH3, there is an option to slave two axis together. then, you just need to be sure the two axis being slaved together (for a gantry anyway) are tuned out reasonably close to one another, and that EVERY setting in the motor tuning (inside mach) are the same between the two axis... of course, this is assuming that the two slaved axis are driving the same physical device.

-nate

[DSL PWR]

How square does the gantry run?

[howling60]

Originally Posted by DSL PWR How square does the gantry run?

well, I haven't gone out and measured exact movements, esp as it's a plasma table and has some pretty wild inaccuracies based on the fact that you can't control the "flame" with incredible precision... however the gantry doesn't bind, wobble, or bounce at all. All straight cuts we make, come out straight, and the machine doesn't ever lose it's position, so I would have to say that the gantry runs square enough (for lack of a better term).

-nate