trying to retrofit gerber s750 plotter vinyl cuttr

Hey i was told i might get some help here. I have a Gerber s750 plotter that i am trying to use with a new computer. But since its electronics are antient and i only had a controller for an old mac that came with it i decided to order 4 stepper motor controllers that i will build into it and that way i can interface it to any computer. Now here is my problem.:
i have an X axis that is linear which only has 30 inches travel
My Y axis is infinite travel (rotating drum)
Z axis is only .5 of an inch travel but the stepper that controls it has infinite rotatability IE at 0' degrees tool is up and at 180' tool is down.
Now i also have what i believe would be configured as an A axis.
it rotates the blade for cutting vinyl its known as the tangential knife rotation stepper or whatever. it has 1.8 degrees per step and 1 rotation of the stepper is one rotation of the knife. How would i go about programing this A axis to cut tangentially according to the direction of movement of the X and Y axes. and if someone could program this for me and just help me implement it it would be excellent as i have no programming experience in any of the languages EMC2 is made in.

Also what free software could i use to make the tool path for EMC2 and hopefully use the modeling software on a windows computer.

Hello,

There is a thread on the EMC developers mail list on this. Try a google search for "Tangential tool configuration emc" to get started.

Rick G

I havent been able to find any information. and i am currently building my stepper controllers. if you could point me to a link with enough suitable information that would be awesome.

This might get you going in the right direction...


This link may not paste right but worth looking at
mail-archive.com/emc-developers@lists.sourceforge.net/msg01698.html"
titled .Re: [Emc-developers] Tangential tool configuration

and

www.linuxcnc.org/component/option,com_ku...d,2565/lang,english/

I do not know if anyone has one up and running.

Rick G

so in other words what your saying is dont use EMC2. i should just use a software that supports what i want to do such as mach 3