Rotary axis with gantry router?

[geneb]

Is there a way to tease a 5th axis out of the Acorn in order to drive a rotary axis on a gantry machine that uses two motors for Y?

tnx.

g.

[Sword]

Five drivers, hardware pair two for Y (not software paired), then one for X and one for Z, and the rotary on the 5th (axis 4 in the wizard). Unless I'm misunderstanding.

[tblough]

Or, if you have to have software pairing, replace it with an Acorn6.

[Gary Campbell]

You can hardware pair the gantry axis to allow adding a 4th axis. Every ShopBot ever shipped from Durham has been wired in this manner. We are currently shipping our Acorn 4 ClearPath systems configured this way and are including independent axis Auto square

[geneb]

That's what I suspected. I was hoping to have auto-square, but I can't have both.

Thanks!

g.

[Ken Rychlik]

You CAN do auto square with hardware pairing. You use relays to cut the step/dir signals to the motors when you run just one motor at a time.

[Gary Campbell]

That's what I suspected. I was hoping to have auto-square, but I can't have both.

Thanks!

g.

Yes you can. And by the time you are ready for it, hardware paired autosquaring may be baked into the wizard's cake!!!

[geneb]

Well I know with the Acorn I'm not going to get two independently driven X (or Y) motors, AND have a spare for the rotary.

g.

[Gary Campbell]

Well I know with the Acorn I'm not going to get two independently driven X (or Y) motors, AND have a spare for the rotary.

g.

Independently driven or have the ability to perform independent auto square? Your machine has never had an independently driven X motor, they are hardware paired.

I have been making auto square kits for ShopBot machines for about a decade, and have adapted that to acorn. Centroid is looking into making it a standard feature in a future release. Other users are doing it now with, as Keith says: "a roll your own" homing macro.

So, yes, for the 3rd time, you can have independent axis Auto square and a rotary 4th axis

[cnckeith]

Acorn Hardware Pair with Auto Squaring Gantry frees up 4th axis for Rotary axis.
Hookup schematic
https://www.centroidcnc.com/dealersuppo ... 200.r1.pdf

page 9
https://www.centroidcnc.com/centroid_di ... _guide.pdf