Can Mach 3 control a partialy manual machine?

[Scott Riddle]

Can Mach 3 be setup to control the spindle height on a vertical mill (bridgeport style) with a rotary indexer on the table and under Mach 3 control but with the X or Y axis moved by hand but with a encoder to provide position feedback. It is kind of like a lathe setup but moving the carriage back and forth by hand.
I have a project that I would like to run on my manual mill but dont want to convert it over to full CNC with ball screws. I just want the spindle to move up and down by CNC and a rotary indexer under CNC control.
The parts I am looking to make are best described like wood ballusters (on stair cases) with curves and spirals.

Thanks for any help or thoughts on my question.

Scott

[jalessi]

Scott,

Mach3 does not have a way to interpret position feedback.


Jeff...

[Scott Riddle]

I was thinking if I put a encoder on 1 axis hand crank it could use that to determine where it should have the other 2 axis relative to it. As I would turn the acme screw by hand the encoder would tell Mach 3 where the spindle should be height wise and the rotation of the rotary indexer. Make sense?

Scott

[jalessi]

Scott,

A encoder can be used as a MPG control, how do you plan on synchronizing it.

Jeff...

[Al_The_Man]

You could probabally do it with a Galil DMC-1500 stand alone unit, these have the same features as a PC based control, but are self contained except for a means of inputing data if needed, with such as a Maple 2 line keypad/display.
These have all the features of gearing, electronic cam etc, so if you hand cranked a screw that had an encoder on it, you could used another axis, rotary table, for example to electronically track or gear one to the other off the handwheel, the electronic gear ratio could be set by the Maple operator input.
It sounds complicated but I have installed such units as add on rotary tables on Mills etc.
The DMC-1500 can often be picked up at a good price off ebay.
Al.

[Scott Riddle]

Jalessi, I am not really sure. I am not that familiar with Mach 3 so that is why I put this post out. I have a friend that has a Plasma Cam machine and he can stop in the middle of a cut and rotate a dial and basically reverse the torch head along the path it was cutting and then resume again from there. That is kind of where I got the idea from. I was hoping it would be a easy thing with Mach 3 but didnt know.
Thanks for any help/direction you can give me.

Scott

[MrWild]

Seems simple enough. Mach has no feed back. It can't tell what is happening if it tells a position move. If you add a pause at the end or single step the Gcode, then Mach will assume that an axis is moving under it's control, but you move it manually.

hit run (in single step mode), mach moves indexer then stops. Hit run, mach moves Z and stops. hit run, mach "moves the ghost axis and stops," you do your x/y moves, then hit run and mach raises Z for next A, position move. repeat.

[jalessi]

Scott,

What about using the "run from here" option in Mach3?


Jeff...