GearHeads Corner

I have happily been using Mach3 and Sheetcam for the last 15 or so years without anything more than the occasional hiccup. But now I've backed myself into a corner. I have designed a small CNC benchtop engraving / guilloche machine that uses lathe cutting tools instead of end mills  / router bits. The fundamental difference being that the lathe tool has a single sided cutting surface whereas the end mills cutter is 360 degrees. The machine has 3 axes - X, Y, and A. A axis is a rotary table.

And now for the problem: In Mach3, you cannot set Y to be a rotary axis hence the use of A. But, Sheetcam only recognizes X,Y and Z. It has been suggested that I simply use Y for the rotary table but that won't work because I need the rotary table to operate only counter clockwise due to the single sided cutting tool. With a normally operating Y axis, the controller moves the cutter backward when moving from positive Y coordinates back towards 0.00 . But, on my setup, moving the Y axis backwards would just rub the material against the backside, the non-cutting side, of the cutting tool.

And, with that somewhat convoluted description of my problem, can Auggie be setup so that the Y axis operates a rotary table ( ie, it increments in degrees, not inches / mm ) ?

( I looked all over for a link to download Auggie but came up empty. Can you give me a link please ? )

Here are a couple pic's of my little machine. It is just a mockup but it does operate ( other than my software issue ). It is sitting on one of my CNC routers so you will see some of that in the background so please don't let that confuse you.

Hi David:

  I dont think I put any rollover in Auggie at all. To be honest, Im not sure, Ill
have to look. I havent used 4th axis in Auggie myself. Ill check and let you know.

The download is on the www.gearotic.com downloads page as a separate download, you do have
to have Gearotic installed and install Auggie to the same folder. The demo of Gearotic is fine, Auggie just
needs some of its files. 

  I am sure though that you cannot do it with X,Y or Z, they are definitely linear axis only.


Art

Hi David:

  Just checked and their is no rollover in Auggie even on the A axis, all axis
are considered linear, though one can set the rotary axis to steps/degree,
it will still be a linear axis from -inf to +inf in position..

Art

Thanks Art. I have a Gearotic licence so I may try Auggie anyways.

ArtF wrote:
  I am sure though that you cannot do it with X,Y or Z, they are definitely linear axis only.

Art

Yes they are , but can not be write a script to convert that and return to A and transfer the motion from Y ( in that case the Y will remain in break, assuming X is primary axe.) ?
Like A = -Y(n*pi / l * x)?2 * sin(n*pi*x / l) where the ' l ' is the dimension of a part to engrave.
And to represent on screen like Y = A * cos (360)  res = rot/min * 360
Not ready yet to mess with scripts , maybe after i will learn everything about GCODE and machining.
Thanks
Bobby

Bobby:

You can do a lot with scripts, but the fundamentals , like the Axis words and
Gcode interpretation of them cannot be changed. As the rotary axis "A" is just
as linear as the others there is o real way to change it even with a script.

As I designed it for laser, I hadn't really considered rollover and such to be applicable,
though requested I can look into at least making the A rollover at 360 degrees.

Art

ArtF wrote: As I designed it for laser, I hadn't really considered rollover and such to be applicable,
though requested I can look into at least making the A rollover at 360 degrees.

Art

Ahh ok , but it is interesting to can be done on rotary . I've seen auggie is realy powerful in all engraving stuff's ,
that should be nice if you can do it .
But i think you can't do that without know'it precisely the size of working piece , right ?
Thanks
Bobby