Looking for clarification of Acorn rules...

[Geoman_Tony]

Hi,

I understand the one Acorn kit/one computer rule. Makes sense. No problem. Here's my question, along with a little background:

I own both a Sherline bench top mill and a Sherline bench top lathe. I have had them for ages, have NEMA 23's on each and have been driving them with a Gecko G540 and Mach 3 (not at the same time). I have separate mill and lathe profiles set up on Mach 3 and separate icons on my desktop for each and I plug whichever motors into my cables as needed. That has been my process for quite some time.

Am I allowed, per the license agreement, to do something similar with Acorn/Gecko in combination? If so, what is the best way to proceed?

Thanks,
Geoman_Tony

[cnckeith]

you can use one computer if you jump through some hoops..its been discussed before on the forum, try and search for it.

[ScotY]

I have 2 Acorn boards, one for mill and one for lathe. Using one PC with an ethernet switch. Not Centroid approved but it works just fine. If you use only one Acorn to swap between 2 machines, that might not be very practical.

[Grifftek]

I built several controls for Sherline lathe and mills where one drive box and one computer were used to control either the 4 axis mill or the 2 axis lathe.

I used a CPC style connector on the drive box and a mating connector on each of the machines. power to the unused drives in lathe mode was looped through the connector for the mill and not looped for the lathe (removing power from the 2 unused drives. it only took a minute or two to switch from the mill to lathe. the spindle plugged into ac outlets controlled by solid state relays in the drive box. This same type of setup would work with the acorn if you can easily switch between lathe and mill profiles.

I imagine you probably have to pay the license fee for both the lathe and mill but I may be wrong, I'm sure someone else can answer that question.






http://www.grifftek.com/grifftek/Custom ... its/emack/




this was another one of my customers who used to share his control between 3 machined through an elaborate switch box he built
Here are the 2 Sherline's:


Plasma Cutter:



Switchbox:












Regards
Bill

[Centroid_Liviu]

You can have both Mill and Lathe installed on the same PC. If you buy a Pro License it will be Mill or Lathe specific. You can buy both Pro Licenses for the same Acorn.

[mikes]

What is that big box that appears to be some kind of display? The one just above the keyboard.