[ESjaavik]

My Y-axis did the first moves "by itself" today, so now I can see the light in the end of the tunnel. ( I hope it's not an oncoming train! )

So even though it's soon able to make chips again, with what I have so far, it will be only through computer control (EMC). Inconvenient! I want my handwheels back too. But since the thing now is dependent on its stepper's/servo's to move it will have to be a "fly by wire" system. I have some encoders that I don't need as the servo's have them integrated and I will rely on the steppers to keep in step without them. So what is needed is 3 channels of 2ph encoder to step/dir conversion. I could do this with an AVR and a few pages of code I guess. Then it would of course be nice to have 3 lines of display showing where it is just now (DRO). That puts me well past a couple of pages.

But as there is a lot of designs on the Internet that I'm not aware of, maybe someone already did this. Do you know if there is one?

What I'm looking for would be able to run the handwheel function without the computer even being turned on. Just throwing a switch to connect the drives to this unit instead of the computer.

[GrahamIT]

I found this and thought it might be of use to you but I'm not sure if it can be left plugged into the driver board at the same time as the cumputer, you'll have to ask Mariss.