Re: [CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO] Current CNC options for Lathes with encoders?

Yes You are missing something.

Suggest the pokeys.
Suggest the mach4 - even though I have not yet moved my lathe to it.

And very much suggest rigging an optical encoder (cheap, timing belts +
2 bearings ok) or ac spindle servo drive for the lathe if funds permit.

The only hw I personally know of that tracks servos well is Cslabs
stuff. 6 axis, + spindle.
4 Mhz.
The pokeys will do so to 125 kHz - and this is often/mostly good enough.
4 axis on mach3.
Iirc more axis on mach4 with pokeys.

I think some of the best other controllers can read optical-encoder
pulse streams, perhaps full encoder data.
cspxxx maybe..
Machmotion maybe..

Biggest/best choices I made;
using AC 2.5 kW servo on the lathe spindle at 1:3 via very strong belt
drive HTD8-30,
using Csmio-IP-S controller.

Got:
90 Nm torque 0-1000 rpm; unbelievably good. I never expected this.
1/30.000 C axis positioning. Very good, but too soft for C axis drive
with y.
Plan to try a planetary at 1:5 or so.

Real MPG. Outstanding. Pokeys does as good.
Nothing else is close. Better / = than HAAS.

The Pokeys stuff gets You 80%+ of the features for 1/3 the price.

Both pokeys and cslabs get you real-time single-ms feedholds, stops,
probing, sso knobs, fro knobs, REAL mpgs etc.
Just like the 100k machines.

Re: servo.
A servo spindle gets unbelievable torque, css, surface speed, stability.
And does usually *not* break stuff in a crash.

It reacts so fast, that the metal parts are bent and tensioned, but not
broken, before the servo faults.




On 21/09/2017 11:30, Lester Caine lester@... [CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO]
wrote:

> The Pokeys boards
> look nice price wise, but I'm not sold on Mach4 having been using Mach3
> on the mill for years. Does any other software take advantage of the
> Pokeys hardware? Then we get back to LinuxCNC which I keep downloading
> but never getting much further along than that despite having a couple
> of other interfaces that are getting good responses about.
>
> Nothing stands out as the ideal solution for a lathe setup like Mach3 is
> for the mill, or am I missing something?

--
-hanermo (cnc designs)