CNC Fabric Cutter

[shanemshaffer]

Morning,
Sorry if this is the wrong location to post this, but seems like the closest.
I am building a 5.5ft wide by 15 foot vacuum table plotter / fabric cutter. I will be using 2 Nema34 motors for moving the Gantry and 1 Nema34 to more the tool head carriage. Will have 2 airheads that are on air cylinders to activate through a relay switch. The primary tool will also have a Nema23 to rotate the hot knife when cutting curves.

What I need help with is recommendations on Controller Board; can use DB25 or USB, controller 4 stepper motors, and able to send outputs to seperate relay switches. I also am not sure what software to use that will allow me to control the hot knifes rotation on curves.

I have heard of the Mach3 being able to do this software wise, but open to any ideas.

Thank you for any help,
Shane

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[rodw]

You might also consider using Linuxcnc and say a Mesa 7i96 or 7i76e ethernet board. The 7i76e has more I/O (32 inputs, 16 outputs). Both can control 5 stepper motors.
While Linuxcnc does not currently have support to calculate the heading (or direction), there is a pull request of mine that adds this. I as asked to add the heading to the additional features I wanted to add by the Linuxcnc release manager for applications exactly like yours. (ie, to orient your NEMA 23). I believe Mach also has this feature. I've been a bit busy and the Linuxcnc dev team is currently working hard upgrade the current release version so I've not been bothering them with non-essential features right now.

One advantage of Linuxcnc for you is that the Mesa cards use 24 volt field power which will allow you to directly control your air solenoids ( I have controlled 24v air solenoids with the Mesa 7i76e). Linuxcnc also adds you to create custom components that are treated as if they were core components so it is very rich in the flexibility it offers for non-standard applications like yours.

[rodw]

Oops, sorry, my pull request. It might be a bit tech, but have a look at the screen dump that displays the new linuxcnc "pins" that give the data you require.

https://github.com/LinuxCNC/linuxcnc/pull/900

[breezy1849]

If you want something that doesn't use a pc, try MASSO.
https://www.masso.com.au
Also coming soon is a all in one touch screen and motion controller. No need for a keyboard or mouse!!