Gantry plasma table with Acorn

[Makerron]

Hi, i am ready to pull the trigger on the Acorn board and associated CNC12 software. I thought first I would ask this forum to confirm that I can pair the two steppers on my Y gantry.
My details are:
4ft X 4ft gantry water table.
1 stepper for x
2 steppers for y
1 stepper for z to be converted to dc motor and stand alone torch height control
Gecko g540 driver
UC100 motion controller
Mach 3 (terrible)

Also, are there other limitations / issues when adapting acorn board / CNC12 to a plasma table?

[Centroid_Liviu]

It looks like you will have a total of 4 axis drives with a 3 axis setup. This is no problem for the Acorn to handle (you can pair the Y axes in software via the Wizard) as long as all your drives accept step and direction input. The G540 has been used multiple times with the Acorn, schematics are available on the website. For your THC it would interface with the Acorn via the I/O. There have been a few plasma tables done by users on this forum using the Acorn, though none have posted any videos yet....

[Makerron]

Thank you!

[martyscncgarage]

Thank you!

If you can, create a photo album or post pictures of your build UP in the Acorn forum.
(Acorn forum is at the TOP of the main page)

Good luck!
Marty

[Makerron]

Thanks, will do

[martyscncgarage]

Hi, i am ready to pull the trigger on the Acorn board and associated CNC12 software. I thought first I would ask this forum to confirm that I can pair the two steppers on my Y gantry.
My details are:
4ft X 4ft gantry water table.
1 stepper for x
2 steppers for y
1 stepper for z to be converted to dc motor and stand alone torch height control
Gecko g540 driver
UC100 motion controller
Mach 3 (terrible)

Also, are there other limitations / issues when adapting acorn board / CNC12 to a plasma table?

Ditch UC100 and Mach3. Use Centroid Acorn, use its DB25 to connect to your Geckodrive G540. I assume you have your limits and Estop connected to G540? You can leave it that way and setup CNC12 Wizard to G540 Legacy. OR you can move all your inputs to Acorn and just use G540 as the stepper driver, set G540 Drive only in Wizard.

Are you using a Torch Height Control yet? If so, which one?
If not, you might check these guys out, they are across the pond but seem to be gaining some popularity:
http://proma-elektronika.com/index.php/ ... ht-control

Lastly, pictures and videos of your build please.
Marty

[Makerron]

THC is agelkom capacitive. Will do pics. Need to bring in acorn and fanless NUC to get started.

[martyscncgarage]

Here is a link to the sensor
http://www.agelkom.com.tr/prod02.htm

[Makerron]

Here is a link to the NUC i purchased.

https://www.logicsupply.com/ml100g-31

Probably won't come in till next week sometime.

[martyscncgarage]

Here is a link to the NUC i purchased.

https://www.logicsupply.com/ml100g-31

Probably won't come in till next week sometime.

Are you in the US?
Centroid sells Inel NUC PCs