Centroid Community CNC Support Forum

I have a lathe type machine use to taper wooden dowels. Currently I am using mach3 mill with steppers and a g540 to control it. I only use 2 axis of the control and a relay to turn a vfd spindle on/off.

In its current configuration I have set the spindle to step/direction and changed the pin numbers so I can use one of the unused axis to run stepper motor for the lathe spindle. My speeds for this are between 250 - 400 and I only need forward on/off and speed control

I have an acorn and would like to change over to it from the g540. Is it possible to output step and direction signals to a stepper powered spindle and do what I want with the acorn? It does not matter if I run it in mill or lathe if that matters.

Thanks

Sorry to see that no one has spoken up to help you - I'll try.
A G540 is a collection of motor drivers (G250's or G251's IIRC) and Mach3 is your control software.
The Acorn board's DB-25 output is pin-compatible with a G540, so you could transition your current build by first connecting your G540 directly to the Acorn and learning the Wizard settings to run from the Acorn CNC12 software.
All the help videos and documentation can be found here: viewtopic.php?f=60&t=3397
and clicking on this link on that page will download the schematics to your PC: Acorn CNC controller Hookup Schematics v4.6:
https://www.centroidcnc.com/centroid_di ... matics.zip
HTH

Sorry, I too missed this.
If you plug your DB25 cable from the G540 to the Acorn DB25 and tell Acorn you are using G540 it will work just like GBCues states.
I would move the Inputs and Outputs to Acorn but you generally don't have to. However you don't say how the VFD is wired. Do you control it just on and off or does the G540 control its spindle speed? If so, you need to move the VFD wiring to Acorn. Would need more information.
Providing more information requested in this post will allow us to better help you if you move forward. (I think you will like Centroid)
viewtopic.php?f=60&t=1043

I got everything working. I used a dc motor for the lathe spindle and used one of the relays to turn the vfd on and off. Cost wasn't that bad and I want to get away from the g540 in the future.

Thanks for the replies. I will be starting a omniturn retrofit next week so I am sure I will have more questions.

BCC wrote: ↑Thu Apr 15, 2021 10:02 pm I got everything working. I used a dc motor for the lathe spindle and used one of the relays to turn the vfd on and off. Cost wasn't that bad and I want to get away from the g540 in the future.

Thanks for the replies. I will be starting a omniturn retrofit next week so I am sure I will have more questions.

Do us a favor, post pictures/video (you have to upload to YouTube and SHARE a link) and description of the conversion on the Success Stories forum.
That's a great way you can say thanks for the help you received!
viewforum.php?f=57

Marty