> Hi John; > > I've a small Unimat SL that I've CNC'd (and talked about it at the last > CNCWorkShop back in June, and in my blog) > > Some random thoughts: > > 1) Beaglebone is fine. Sure, graphics is slow, but so what? Change "Axis" > to the DRO display and you are fine.
That's what I thought too > > 2) My OLD Unimat has a not so great spindle, which is a bit of a problem. > And an old motor, which is very weak. > > 3) Currently, I have no spindle feedback for threading. > It's unlikely you can thread with a weak spindle. I found with the ELS that the best place to put money into a lathe for doing that wasn't on a multi-line encoder but instead on a stable spindle motor. That's why the idea of using the stepper. A DC Servo is also an option and brings in a multi-line encoder for much better tracking. > 4) Others have used stepper motors for spindle control on Unimats; one > chap > in Germany, and, maybe Cecil on this list? Be interested to see that. > > 5) I've a larger, stronger lathe (a big brother to the Unimat - an Emco > Compact-8) that is my target lathe for CNC; not sure if I'm going to > develop the Unimat further. > I have a Gingery and a South Bend. The Gingery has full Z,X and Spindle control and can thread using the ELS. AS yet I've not added a cross slide motor to the taper fixture end of the X axis. > I have the Xylotex cape, with the Beaglebone direct from them, pushing a > Gecko G540. OK. I'll look at the Xylotex cape. > > Look at cnc-for-model-engineers.bogspot.com and top left corner is a search > box, put "Unimat" in there. Maybe it'll give you some ideas. Thanks. That's a great suggestion and it turned up this below. http://cnc-for-model-engineers.blogspot.ca/search?q=unimat John > > John. > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
