Hello All, new to this forum.  I have taken some CNC Classes from a community college, but I am by all means new to Mach3, and the parts of CNC.  I run a CNC daily using Mastercam, and am familiar with G and M codes.

I want to build my first CNC, a coil winding machine for guitar pickups.  I'm thinkning of using a servo for the spindle, and stepper for the wire guide.  All I need is a variable speed spindle and a small amount of Z axis traverse.  I don't need much torque, I'll be using 40-45 AWG.  My idea is to control the Z feed (wire guide) using a pendant (Vista's iMach?), and the spindle using some sort of foot control to vary the spindle speed. 

1.  Is this plausible?
2.  Could Mach3 duplicate my jogging (not MDI) moves and spindle variations using Teach or Copycat?

Also, any recommendations for parts would be very helpful

Thanks,
Jeff



 

Hi Jeff,

Welcome to the forum.

Hood is the man when it comes to coil winders he will know 

Tweakie.

I dont think what you want to do would be an easy task but doing it conventionally should be easy.
 I have made a small coil winding machine, coils up to 100mm dia and 500mm long can be wound but also have wound coils as small as 20mm long on a core of 0.5mm Mu metal and 0.1mm dia wire. pic below of that coil and the winder.

I used steppers for spindle and Axis and then for the small core had to add a second stepper as a slave spindle  so I could hold the 0.5mm core in tension for winding onto.

Any info you want about my build just ask.

Hood

Hood,

How do you slave a spindle? In Mach or you just split the signal to the 2 drivers?

Dan

Dan,
 didnt really slave the spindle as such, what I was calling the spindle is actually  X axis (if I recall) and it is a linear  axis even though its rotating So second spindle was set up as A and slaved to X.

Hood

OK. Then apparently I don't understand how it operates

Dan

Its simple enough Dan, the axis that is X is like a spindle but it is a linear axis that rotates and the A which would normally be thought of as a rotational axis is also a linear axis which also rotates and is slaved to the linear axis that rotates like a spindle but is set as X

Hood

Yep, Hood. Simple indeed ... Spindle which acts like a linear axis... afraid you lost me there.

Is the chuck on the left being called X and the stepper on the right being called A? Aren't they supposed to be rotating continuously, while the longitudinal axis feeds back and forth? How do you achieve the continuous rotation with a linear axis in Mach3?

Dan

Dan, the spindle on the left is the normal spindle, it is set as X in Mach and it has steps per unit set so that one unit is one revolution. The motor on the right is slaved and it is the same, one revolution equals 1 unit.
To turn a coil I need to know the length, the dia of the wire and the amount of turns required. I enter them into the DROs on my screen and then press the button to generate the code. The Z axis goes the distance that the coil is and then reverses but the X (spindle) continually goes the same direction. So for example that small coil above has a length of 20mm the Z axis will go from zero to 20 then back to zero then 20 then 0 etc until the amount of turns are complete. The X (spindle ) will turn by the amount of turns I have entered into the DRO. Here is a pic of the screenset I made up.
Hood

Hood,

Pretty much what I guessed. Just didn't know that the number of turns was known... Thought you'd start it and watch it till you think it was enough and then stop it

But I am curious now, how do you generate the G-code from the info you entered in the DROs?

Dan