Hi,
I am new to the forum so please bare with me. I am a mechanical engineer with very limited electrical/software engineering experience. I decided to join because I wanted to get some input on a project of mine. Let me explain.
I am looking to control 5 stepper motors/servo motors and some other associated switches and optical sensors. The machine will be completely custom and built by me. It would be beneficial to program and control the machine using a laptop computer. The machine would turn out parts modeled in 3D from SolidWorks and could be in native SW format, IGES, or STEP. Basically I need to fill in the gap between the 3D data file and the machine's motors and sensors.
After searching the web for "custom cnc controllers" I came across the Arcsoft site offering Mach3. I don't even know if this is what I need. Any help or guidance would be extremely appreciated. Thanks.