Re: [CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO] Bridgeport CNC Mill???

My main interest is getting my complex lathe retrofits running (will be
a commercial product).

Ie two opposite spindles, and both are live tooling, and indexed.
Ie both are servos.

The smaller spindle, on a lathe x axis, has tilts (will have, not yet).
So it can do angular +/- 10 degrees on x and y, from the point of view
of spindle2.

Like the cincinnati 5 axis machine, opposite a regular lathe.

So it can make a propeller, or turbine, in one chucking.
Or a motorcycle wheel, with off-center angled holes, drilled, tapped and
bored.
And thread a bolt in at 600 rpm, rigid.

Actually, all of these things work, today, separately, with mach3, given
that you have a way to do the programming and good enough hw.
Unfortunately, the second spindle is not directly supported by mach3.
The hw part is not hard, and not too expensive.

The mach3 workaround today is to think of one spindle at a time, and use
swapaxis to swap which axis is a spindle "now",
or electronics or sw to direct where the pulses go.

I expect that the centipede will natively work with this fairly soon ..
and this will be a big deal.
And yes, when it works I will have videos.

I will probably have it, or a smaller mini- as- demo, in exhibitions,
making wheels or propellers.
I dont move the 500 kg lathe a lot..smile.

Secondary is a similar, multi axis cnc tool grinder.
Mostly, one axis, at most two, move.
But the 2 axis are any one of 7, in different planes.
Again, the reason for servo indexed spindle is making drills, reamers
etc, with live rotating against the grinding plane.

> "hanermo" - CNC 6-axis Designs wrote:
> > Jon .. a Q at top ..
> >
> > Does EMC23 support multiple spindles in lathe, mill or both ?
> > With step/dir control, or +/-10V or something ?
> >
> Do you mean live tooling? I think it CAN support this. There has been
> discussion
> for some time on how you switch between a (main) spindle and a C axis,
> and there
> is no consensus on the best way to do this. If you use it as a spindle,
> the spindle
> encoder will wind up to a large value. If you then switch it to the C
> axis, you have
> to get rid of the large number of accumulated rotations. One way, of
> course, is
> to have to home the C axis every time you switch from spindle to C.
>

>
> I believe this is the only thing that hasn't been nailed down for
> support of
> live tooling-type operations.
>

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