Advanced Search

Yes, that could definitely be the case. It's a very old machine—27 years old—but I decided I want to give her a new life. The structure is really solid, plus it has vacuum and lubrication for aluminum, which is great.
So, I want to do this retrofit, and I think the setup I posted here should get the job done. The only thing I have to do is adapt the old motor frames (they have a small gearbox), because the old motor is 89x89mm and the Leadshine is 80x80mm. I hope it won’t be too difficult.
Once the machine is up and running and I’ve done some work with it, I can swap the spindle and install an automatic tool changer. That would be so cool!

Do you have any general advice? Does the setup look good to you guys?
By the way, I’ve installed the LinuxCNC ISO on an old PC with an Intel i5. Now I’m just waiting to buy the Mesa board and start configuring everything.

Thanks for the replies, but some misunderstanding here.
The system is fine, up and running LinuxCNC 2.9.3, configured for the X-axis with joint0 and joint1 as it should be (cutting a big slab of 5 mm Alu while I am typing this). The only thing I am adding is a racking detector (for which I use encoder_ratio looking for a mismatch on encoder disks on both X axis).

While browsing through the HAL functions I ran into Matrixkins, and I wondered if this is not an easier way than changing some HAL values to square the axes. Since it does not apply to a tandem axis, I'll drop the issue.
But thanks for the replies anyway.

Robert

Yes.
When mounted inside, the encoder wires have to go inside, and those are the ones most susceptible to interference.

No need, since 2.8 the joint/axis is implemented in LinuxCNC, so just choose "tandem joint/axis" in the wizard.