CNC Spindle synchronization

[Leadhead]

Chaz THanks again. Has anyone connected such a rotary encoder to Mach 3 please?

[Chaz]

Chaz THanks again. Has anyone connected such a rotary encoder to Mach 3 please?

Im sure, certainly that's the way that you deal with speed checking and indexing on Mach 3 too. I tried via my Pokeys board but gave up with Pokeys and then Mach 3.

[Leadhead]

Where did you go after Mach 3?

[Chaz]

Where did you go after Mach 3?

Centroid Acorn. So much better.

[hanermo2]

I highly recommend using an optical encoder, even like a cheap amt-102, for the index signal.

But this will need a high-speed interface board, as the signal is very crisp - what you want - and very short so only good motion control hw will be able to read it.

I tried about 10 different solutions - and am now using full industrial servos with index and a csmio-ip-s interface kit from cslabs.

[Chaz]

I highly recommend using an optical encoder, even like a cheap amt-102, for the index signal.

But this will need a high-speed interface board, as the signal is very crisp - what you want - and very short so only good motion control hw will be able to read it.

I tried about 10 different solutions - and am now using full industrial servos with index and a csmio-ip-s interface kit from cslabs.

Do you use Mach or the CS Labs' new Software?

Have you tried Centroid Acorn?

Also, we are still waiting for pics from your machine(s) please :-)

[m_c]

There's no use recommending encoders when we don't even know if Leadhead's setup will even work with an encoder.

We really need to know what kind of controller the lathe is using, or if it's just using a parallel port, as it may just need some form of single slot sensor.

Plus Hanermo, those AMT encoders are not optical, they're capacitive. They would probably be ok for a continually moving axis though.