one drive box

[krymis]

i want to use one xylotex 4 axis drive box to drive a cnced mini mill and a cnced mini lathe. I know this is not hard to do but where do i plug the lathe motors into? Do i plug them in the x and z ports or x and y ports?

[Torchhead]

Depends on the drive software. If you use MACH which supports mill and lathe you use "profiles" where you can define any output as any axis (and what direction and speed they travel). The axis definiton for lathe (conventional) is different but that is more about how you think and do you do your CAM work than what you call the axis on your machine (screams from the gallary being injected here).

So to answer your question with proper drive software you can plug anything in whereever you want. You can map the output pins on the PC to move whatever motor your want. You can color code your motor plugs as Red and Green and just setup the profiles so red/green spins the right axis on the mill and the right axis on the lathe. Probably need different settings for each anyway since the steps per inch, velocity and spin directions may be totally different.

Tom Caudle
www.CandCNC.com

[krymis]

i am using mach 3 and bobcad cam v21. So if I am correct in what i hear you can just plug the lathe into the x and z plugs since the bobcad g code already assigns it x and z axis.