hw allow Mach and Labview to drive a mill?

[wddanie]

Can somone suggest hw to allow either Mach or Labview to drive the same milling machine?

I am planning a mill retrofit and want to drive the mill for metal
cutting using Mach. I also have inspection needs for a big positioner
to move a sensor over a part, so it would be nice to use the mill for
that as well, but I want to drive it from Labview for that task so that
the data logging from the sensor can be easily coordinated with
motion.

I thought I saw a post a while back about someone writing Labview VIs for the Gecko G-Rex, but I cannot find any confirmation of this now. I'm open to any hw to do this, so can you suggest any hw that will work with both software approaches.

Thanks in advance,

Doug Danielson
Atlanta

[InspirationTool]

LabView should be able to drive the parallel port, so that would work for a parallel port based driver.

-Jeff

[wddanie]

I have not been able to find a Labview VI that sends the step and dir pulses out the parallel port. I hope I can find one rather than having to make my own.

I thought I read in the past about someone writing a VI to drive the G-Rex from LV, but I have not found it yet.

Thanks for your suggestion,

Doug Danielson

[PoppaBear10]

do it the easy way,

use your in a "Scanning" tool path, (create it in your cam as a surfacing operation with back and fourth raster moves).

From Lab view once you up and ready to scan, press a button in the view that sends out a signal by what ever means, (i.e. modbus, or USB I/O, or what ever). In the Macro pump on mach have it running a If then statement, that when IsActive(INPUT1) or what ever comes on, then it does a DoOEMButton cycle start. Your scanning program starts running, and your inspection equipment starts putting in data into your Lab view app.

scott