Centroid Community CNC Support Forum

I have three cnc devices (In varies stages of build);
G0704 mill
HY6040 router
7x10 lathe

Bought an Acorn, and am trying to decide how to best use what I have.

My first thought was to put everything in one box and switch the DB25 lines to the KL-8070D, KL-5056E, and M542T Drivers depending on whether I want mill, router or lathe.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________
But

Currently, I am thinking to just have the Acorn in one enclosure with a DB25 cable out and then each CNC device would have another enclosure with the drivers and power supply, accepting a DB25 input.

Advantage of separate Driver enclosures is that the different devices can/do have different power supply values, ie 36v and 48v

Also I have a Pokeys57cnc controller and RMHV2.1, which I might also be use with these separate driver enclosures.

This second idea of separate Controller and Driver enclosures would require at least a DB25 cable between the two enclosures.

Feedback please...

My advice is that you build one, get it working to your satisfaction, and then purchase another Acorn controller and CNC-PC for each of the other machines.

There is a lot you are not considering in thinking you can run 3 different machines off the same controller.

Each machine would/could have different homing, limit travel, tool length offset, jog speeds, etc, etc.

The other thing you'll need to consider is the PC(s). While you could run them all from the same PC you will find yourself jumping through a number of hoops to do so starting with keeping each machine in it's own directory and then renaming each directory to c:\cncm or c:\cnct when you want to run each machine

Thanks for the feedback

When I installed Acorn CNC12, I installed to three different directories (Folders)
Mill, Router , and Lathe

Won't the setting in these these directories persist for only that device (directory)? IE mill, router and lathe.
Is "different homing, limit travel, tool length offset, jog speeds, etc, etc" stored per machine type (Folder) or is it stored in the Acorn controller?
Why would I need to rename a folder each time I want to use that machine, appears to open fine just the way I installed to three different folders.

Really don't have the space for a computer per machine, Is this not possible? One computer with three machines??

Is it "OK" to build the control box as two enclosures, one the Acorn and RD-35b and the second enclosure the Stepper Drivers and Power supply, both connected by DB25 cable??