If you use a pendant or video game controller, now is the time to program that as well. Next comes programming some hot keys for the rotary axis. If it’s not, I’ll have to reverse the direction of that stepper motor by going up to the CONFIG menu, selecting Homing/Limits, and putting a checkmark in the Reversed column, next to A Axis. So if I stand in front of the machine, the top of the chuck should appear to be turning toward me. Positive Rotation should be counter-clockwise. Pay attention to the direction of the chuck’s rotation. With the profile made and the settings entered, we’re ready to test the rotary axis. Before you do, however, go back to the CONFIG menu, and click Save Settings so that all of these changes will be written to the hard drive and saved. Whether you make any changes in the Slave Axis window or not, it’s time to restart Mach3. The next step is to make sure there are no axes slaved together. Also remember that the speeds we’re setting in this window are the rapid movement rates – NOT the normal feed rates. That’s not how fast the axis will turn – that’s how fast it will accelerate to the speed of 2500 degrees per second. Next I’ll set the acceleration to 485 degrees per second. At 2500, it should take less than 10 seconds to make 1 complete revolution, which is not very fast at all. For instance, if I set the velocity at 360, that means it will take 1 minute for the axis to make one complete 360 degree revolution. Remember that we’re not working in inches per minute in this case – we’re working in DEGREES per minute. If it turns out that it does matter, I can come back and add more.įor the velocity, I entered 2500. I entered 5 places to the right of the decimal only because I don’t know how many Mach3 will let me enter, and I really don’t know if going any further than 5 places to the right of the decimal will matter. So, I now know that the Steps Per for the A axis is 53.33333.
So to find out how many steps per degree to enter in the Steps Per box in the Motor Tuning window, the math looks like this:ģ200 steps X 6:1 drive ratio = 19,200 steps to turn the chuck 360 degrees, or 1 complete revolution.ġ9,200 steps divided by 360 degrees in a circle = 53.33333 recurring. In the case of my Sunwin unit, that ratio is 6:1 – meaning it takes 6 revolutions of the stepper motor to turn the chuck 1 complete revolution. Now we need to know the drive ratio of the rotary axis. So we have our 3200 steps to turn the stepper motor 1 complete revolution. In the case of the Xylotex motor, that number is 3200 steps. Motor Tuning Settings for the Z axisįirst, we’ll need to find out how many steps our motor takes to turn one complete revolution. So we’ll need to get some info and do a little bit of math before we can enter the Steps Per for this axis.
The A axis is ANGULAR, and it’s based on Steps Per Degree. The thing to remember is that the other axes are LINEAR, and they’re based on Steps Per Inch. The A axis is the axis that may cause the most confusion. The Really Important Bitsįifth is the motor setup, which we’ll do by going to the CONFIG menu and selecting Motor Tuning. General Configuration SettingsĬlick picture to open full-sized image in a new tab. Next is to make sure the A, B, and C axes are configured as ANGULAR axes, and there is no checkmark next to Home Slave with Master Axis box in the General Configuration window. Third is to activate the Motor Outputs one by one. Select Native UnitsĬlick picture to open full-sized image in a new tab. The second step is to Select Native Units. The rotary axis is just an accessory to the CNC router, so I cloned the Mach3 Mill profile. A rotary axis is not a CNC lathe – there are some major differences. You don’t want to use Mach3 Turn, because that’s designed for a CNC lathe.
No matter which way we go, we’re going to have to enter and change a bunch of settings, so I chose to clone the factory Mach3 Mill profile. We can clone the profile we use now and modify that clone, or we can clone one of the factory profiles and modify that clone. The first step is to create a separate Mach3 profile for it.
Feel free to download and save these pictures for future reference, but please don’t post them online without talking to me BEFORE you do it. If you right-click the pictures, then select “Open in New Tab, a full-sized picture will open in a new tab on your browser.
I will, however, include screen shots of all of the relevant Mach3 windows that I went through in the video. Rather than go through the entire process here, I’ll give you some of the highlights and refer you to the video on my YouTube channel, linked below. With the rotary axis assembled and ready to go, it’s time to set up Mach3 to work with it.