Gate / Bridgeport Interract / Project

[Neale]

I had a very quick flick through the manual and it seems to have similar controls to mine. I use a WHB04 (I think, from memory) which seems to be available from a whole bunch of different online sources. It works slightly differently depending on the system you use it with - I have used the same device with Mach3 (which I used with an Ethernet Smooth Stepper as well), UCCNC, and MyCNC. They all provide a continuous or step mode, though. In continuous, you select the axis and the speed range, and the axis moves while the wheel is turning. Good for rapid positioning. In step mode, you choose the step size and each click of the wheel moves that amount. Typically, I use 1mm steps for initial positioning, then 0.1 or 0.01 steps for fine adjustment. That works with the fag paper method pretty well! It has the advantage that because my machine has ballscrews and Hiwin rails anyway, the table moves very easily and there is very little feel on the handwheel. "one click at a time" is actually more precise once you are down to the 0.01mm setting. My MPG also has a couple of rotary switches for axis selection and step size selection so I can pretty much use it without looking at the panel while watching the work and tool. I'm surprised that you say that there is no feedback through the handwheel - I can be confident that an axis will move by a very precise amount for each click of the wheel.

But different people have different ways of working and all our machines are different. I just find it so much easier and just as accurate and sensitive to stay in the "software in control" mode but then, I had been using my home-built CNC router before this where I had absolutely no manual control of axis movement except via the keyboard or MPG, so I just had to get used to it.

I'm sure that this is the kind of thing that brings out strong feelings in people - be interested to hear other views. For me - big tick in the box for MPG!

[JAZZCNC]

Hey, look who's back, nice to see you here again Matt.

If you want to knock out the servos just fit a switch to the servo ON signal, but knowing you I bet you're not using it..

But that said I'm with the others and would use a Pendant, also the handles will affect servo tuning.