Dynomotion's Mill Retrofit for Analog Drives

[TomKerekes]

Need to retrofit a Mill with existing Analog Drives?

Dynomotion's Kanalog offers a complete low cost solution.

Works with Mach3 or our free KMotionCNC software

http://www.dynomotion.com/Kanalog.html

[DennisCNC]

Do you have links to people running your hardware with Mach3? I would like to see a 3 axis and a lathe running your controller with mach.

[TomKerekes]

We're still working on threading. Here is a big router:

"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTj5MGc5pl0"]YouTube- fanom and KFLOP.wmv

[DennisCNC]

The original analogue drives are used in the above video?

[ger21]

You should post some video of higher speed applications. My little homebuilt router moves faster than that.

The KFLOP looks very interesting for a Mach3 driven router. At $250, it's not badly priced. However, looking at your site, the documentation is a bit vague. Do you supply cables for connecting to step/dir drives, or do these need to be supplied/fabricated by the user? A simple screw terminal board might be a nice offereing.

Also, is axis slaving supported in your Mach3 plugin?

[TomKerekes]

The original analogue drives are used in the above video?

Yes

[TomKerekes]

You should post some video of higher speed applications. My little homebuilt router moves faster than that.

The KFLOP looks very interesting for a Mach3 driven router. At $250, it's not badly priced. However, looking at your site, the documentation is a bit vague. Do you supply cables for connecting to step/dir drives, or do these need to be supplied/fabricated by the user? A simple screw terminal board might be a nice offereing.

Also, is axis slaving supported in your Mach3 plugin?

Good points. Its hard to get Users to make videos. Most promise but rarely get around to it. I don't think you will find KFlop to be limiting your speed - only your drives and motors.

Yes slaving is supported. It is configured in KFlop and is transparent to Mach3 and the Plugin.

[ger21]

Yes slaving is supported. It is configured in KFlop and is transparent to Mach3 and the Plugin.

So the KFlop does the slaving, and not Mach3? If so , then you don't have the Mach3 option of homing the two sides independently to keep a gantry square?

[TomKerekes]

So the KFlop does the slaving, and not Mach3? If so , then you don't have the Mach3 option of homing the two sides independently to keep a gantry square?

You can home the two sides independently. Mach3 via the Plugin sends a message to KFlop to home the axis. It is up to you to write a small program to perform the operation. This is a very flexible approach but does require you to write a program (or modify an existing one). A common technique is to home both axes simultaneously but stop each axis independently on separate home switches.

Our basic philosophy is that all hard real-time operations are performed locally in KFlop.

[ger21]

Mach3 does that automatically, but your saying I'd need to do it myself in the KFlop?

[TomKerekes]

Mach3 does that automatically, but your saying I'd need to do it myself in the KFlop?

Well, yes :} However I wouldn't say that Mach3 does it "automatically". There are a number of settings on several screens that must be configured. I agree changing settings for Users is less frustrating than modifying a program or script. Hopefully you see that the script is more powerful, flexible, and visible.

You spotlight a dilemma for us. How to retain the most Mach3 functionality that users are familiar with, while also moving the real-time control out of the PC and allowing new functionality with only the plugin interface we are given.

I experimented a bit in the Plugin to see if what you are requesting might work right out-of-the box. I configured the A axis to slave to the X axis. Then pushed “Ref X” on the diagnostics screen. There is a “flag” word that gets sent to the plugin to request a home operations. The flag word has a bit for each axis so multiple axes could be selected simultaneously. But instead of receiving home X+A, home X then home A was received sequentially! I suppose this would work 99.9% of the time, except if Windows were to hiccup between the two calls.

I also pushed “Ref A” and only Home A was sent to the plugin, which could be a disaster.

“Ref All Home” sent Home Z, Home Y, Home X, Home A, then Home A again. That could be fixed by modifying the VB script :}

Maybe I miss-configured something? I’m sure there is some clever workaround for this.

Anyway I wanted to say that we are aware of your points. But we feel our current method is the safest, most reliable, and flexible method. Eventually we may be able to make it simpler and more “Automatic”.

[ger21]

Well, yes :} However I wouldn't say that Mach3 does it "automatically". There are a number of settings on several screens that must be configured.

Not really. Set up the two home switches in ports and pins, slave the axis, and home. The only specific setting for this function is an option to disable it in General Config. I haven't actually used this function, so you might also have to modify the ref all script to home them together (refcombination() )?

Anyway I wanted to say that we are aware of your points. But we feel our current method is the safest, most reliable, and flexible method. Eventually we may be able to make it simpler and more “Automatic”.

I have no problem with that. I just wanted to understand how your system works.

I'm building a new router that'll take most of the year to finish, but I'll seriously consider the KFLOP when the time comes. Thanks