[Jim Anderson]

Anyone made a Non-Tormach 4th axis work with the 1100 and Mach 3?

I would like to add multiple Sherline ones in a row, to cut small parts more efficiently, if anyone has any feed back...

Thanks,
Jim Anderson

[sansbury]

I just hooked up my Tormach 4th this past weekend. I am pretty sure that the Tormach 4th is just a standard step/direction setup the same as a Sherline. The Tormach 4th driver has configurable current, so it's possible it might work with the motor on a Sherline, or you could get a compatible motor to bolt on to the Sherline setup.

Now, multiple 4th axes.... I'm not super sure but I imagine you might be able to hack at least two to work by treating them as a slave axis. I don't know Mach very well so not sure if there is a limit to the number of slaves you can control, but maybe that would work. This assumes that you'd want them to just operate in unison, i.e., to make multiples of the same part. If you want to be able to control them independently, you could set them up as B, C, U, V, W etc. axes but then you'll have to program for them accordingly. If you're OK with hand-editing code it could be as simple as a bit of cut-and-paste and search-replace with fixture offsets.

[WOTDesigns]

First off: cool idea! I am several shirline 4ths all rotating in unison after finishing op1 right? I'm very interested in how that could be done.

Here is a start.http://www.cnczone.com/forums/diy_cn...ible_will.html

[SCzEngrgGroup]

Anyone made a Non-Tormach 4th axis work with the 1100 and Mach 3?

I would like to add multiple Sherline ones in a row, to cut small parts more efficiently, if anyone has any feed back...

Thanks,
Jim Anderson

There is a guy named Steve Simpson, who is active on the ArtSoft forum. He used to sell (I think he still does....) a very nice 4th axis. There are several videos of it on YouTube. It's a very capable little device, and certainly FAR better built and more powerful than the Sherlines and the cheap Chinese ones.

I know Steve tried at one point to integrate the controls for his product into the Tormach screenset, but abandoned it when Tormach refused to provide any informatioj or support whatsoever to assist him in doing so. They seem to actively discourage third parties from providing accessories for their machines, as I've heard the same thing from at least one other guy who also wanted to develop accessories for Tormachs. It's a shame they don't have a more "open" attitude, as I think it would be to their benefit in the long run. But, it's their choice to make.

I don't know how far Steve got in the Tormach integration, but I do know his 4th axis is very well regarded, and works very well with standard Mach3, so I can't imagine it would be at all difficult to get it running under a non-Tormach version of Mach3.

I'd be happy to put you in touch with Steve if you'd like to find out more about it.

Regards,
Ray L.

[Zetopan]

Anyone made a Non-Tormach 4th axis work with the 1100 and Mach 3?

Yes, I made my own 4th axis. It is relatively easy to accomplish this but you may need to contact Tormach and sign a disclaimer to
get to the Mach 3 internal setup if your 4th axis has a different resolution than the Tormach 4th axes. Mine has twice the angular
resolution of the Tormach rotary tables. There is also the issue of motor current drive either matching Tormach's drive currents or
else using a different stepper motor driver altogether. And also altering the maximum speed and acceleration rates if either one of
those differ from Tormach's rotary tables.

I would like to add multiple Sherline ones in a row, to cut small parts more efficiently, if anyone has any feed back...

I don't know the resolution of the Sherline steppers but the drive currents are certainly very different from what Tormach uses.
You would also need to install a separate driver for each of your Sherline rotary tables and the driver inputs would be driven in
parallel from the same PC parallel pins as the Tormach rotary tables. You will also need to come up with a new maximum speed
and acceleration rates for the Sherline rotary tables since both of those are very likely to be different from what Tormach uses
for their rotary tables. These settings require an unlocked version of Mach 3 so you would need to contact Tormach and your
warrantee would then obviously be voided (i.e. the same unlocking procedure that is required for handling a different resolution).
I had to come up with a new maximum speed and acceleration rate for my custom rotary table since both differed from Tormach's.

[BAMCNC.COM]

I have a Sherline rotary table with Digital Driver I was just about to put on eBay... but, perfect timing on this thread. You can call me and sign my disclaimer...

[RTP_Burnsville]

Hi,

Yes, I have added a non-Tormach 4th axis to my PC1100. The table is a Grizzly Vertex clone with an Automation Direct 34 stepper. The drive is a Keling digital drive which is similar to the newer Tormach drives.

[BAMCNC.COM]

New Tormach drives are NOT digital. Sounds like my setup is close to yours with Keling parts, I'll have to try it this week.

[Dylwad]

New Tormach drives are NOT digital. Sounds like my setup is close to yours with Keling parts, I'll have to try it this week.

Just curious, do you have a part number on the tormach drives? The one I can easily find for the series 3 is now a legacy drive at leadshine.

Sent from tapatalk

[BAMCNC.COM]

I don't, sorry. I just know they are analog, Tormach wrote a white paper on them a little while ago.

[nitewatchman]

New Tormach drives are NOT digital. Sounds like my setup is close to yours with Keling parts, I'll have to try it this week.

Actually, in the industrial drive world the Leadshine Drives would be considered to be a Digital Drive verses an Analog Drive. Typically Analog Drives are designed to respond to a -10VDC to +10VDC input voltage to control speed and direction where 0VDC results in the motor stopped and holding, -10VDC is full speed reverse and +10VDC is full speed forward.

When the first Allen Bradley and Fanuc Digital Drives (Red Motor Caps) were introduced they were somewhat of a game changer and not usuable in retro-fits since they relied not on +10VDC/-10VDC for control but two pulsed digital signals, one for step and one for direction. In the world of Servo Motor and Drives this occured in the late 1980's early 1990's. It surprised us all because it looked like steppers again.

Parker does a good job explaining the difference and applications in their catalog: http://www.compumotor.com/catalog/cataloga/a31-a33.pdf.

The older 2 phase stepper drives the Tormach uses on the fourth axis should work with nearly any stepper motor PROVIDED the DIP switches are correctly set for the correct microstepping selection and current limit for the selected motor.

Just my opinion, I could be wrong.

nitewatchman

[SCzEngrgGroup]

Actually, in the industrial drive world the Leadshine Drives would be considered to be a Digital Drive verses an Analog Drive. Typically Analog Drives are designed to respond to a -10VDC to +10VDC input voltage to control speed and direction where 0VDC results in the motor stopped and holding, -10VDC is full speed reverse and +10VDC is full speed forward.

When the first Allen Bradley and Fanuc Digital Drives (Red Motor Caps) were introduced they were somewhat of a game changer and not usuable in retro-fits since they relied not on +10VDC/-10VDC for control but two pulsed digital signals, one for step and one for direction. In the world of Servo Motor and Drives this occured in the late 1980's early 1990's. It surprised us all because it looked like steppers again.

Parker does a good job explaining the difference and applications in their catalog: http://www.compumotor.com/catalog/cataloga/a31-a33.pdf.

The older 2 phase stepper drives the Tormach uses on the fourth axis should work with nearly any stepper motor PROVIDED the DIP switches are correctly set for the correct microstepping selection and current limit for the selected motor.

Just my opinion, I could be wrong.

nitewatchman

That description still applies to servo drives, but it's not that clear cut when you're talking about modern stepper drivers. A typical stepper driver uses some digital logic (counters, memories, etc.) to generate the correct PWM values for micro-stepping. In fact, ANY micro-stepping drive will contain a fair amount of digital logic. But, they're still pretty "dumb" devices, and are considered "analog" drives, despite their considerable digital "content". Geckos, and nearly all inexpensive stepper drives, are an example of this "class" of drive. As of a few years ago, there is a new class of stepper drives, typically marketed as "digital" stepper drives, that contain a DSP (Digital Signal Processor), and can do "smart" things like measure the motor's eletrical characteistics (resistance, inductance, etc.) and response to stimulus, and automatically apply anti-resonance algorithms, and many other things, thus altering their control algorithms to automatically provide more optimal performance.

Here's the Keling "digital" drive referred to earlier: http://kelinginc.com/KLDriverDigital.html

Regards,
Ray L.

[BAMCNC.COM]

Right.