Hybrid Stepper motor for spindle motor - turning, indexing
I am retrofitting a old manual lathe to CNC and looking to use Mach 3. I have a stepper on the cross slide screw and a hybrid stepper (stepper with encoder so no lost steps) on the carriage back and forth axis. I need a new spindle motor and I am wondering can I use a Hybrid stepper on the spindle? My carriage motor is a 12Nm, 1,000 rpm hybrid stepper. The torque stays up very well up to ~1,000 rpm. I dont think I will be using very high rpms the most of the time so the 1,000 rpm max would be fine. This is a small lathe with a 4" chuck.
My main question is how or can you control the hybrid stepper to run at a fixed rpm, like 750, or be used to index the part in the chuck for a live tool on the tool post to do cutting. This is just like the big new multi function/axis CNC lathes run. The hybrid stepper drive is a Leadshine and uses step and direction type inputs. Can all of this type of control be setup to run either way and easily switch between the 2 modes?
Here is the motor/driver I am using. https://www.ebay.com/itm/12NM-Nema34...wAAOSwiA9ZZcty
Thanks
Scott
Re: Hybrid Stepper motor for spindle motor - turning, indexing
In my (lathe) software I periodically update the Z-axis position to keep the Z-axis running at the requested speed. The C-axis could also run this way but for constant speed i prefer using the original spindle motor. My spindle is also fitted with a stepper motor. This motor is activated by a lever. During normal turning it is inactive. I control the spindle stepper the same way I control a rotary table. Doing this i can do broaching, grinding and knurling. I also use this stepper for threading. This is just a matter of calculating the number of rotations an then move the Z and C axis simultaneously.
A hybrid stepper using step/dir signals works from the controller point of view the same as a normal stepper.
The software controls the controller who is controlling the driver who is controlling the stepper. Your software should be able to use a stepper in constant feed mode or you could/should write some G-codes to do the job.
