[Farmers Machine]

I heard of a magic box that would allow a manual pulse generater / hand wheel on the less expensive 1842 card. I would like to have a physical twisty nob to adjust feed rate and be able to position the torch over the start point with a hand wheel instead of the mouse jog. Is this simply possible with out it costing what a good card would cost?
Thank You
The Farmer.

[Lohmeyer]

My 3 axis mill has a 1842 card and uses the feedback encoder of the 4th axis for the hand wheel. In other words, my 4th axis is not used to drive any motors. It is just used as an input for the hand wheel encoder. But, are you asking about an external box (circuit) that will allow adding a hand wheel to an 1842 card without using one of the four axis encoders? I can't help there, but if it exists I am curious too.

Regards,
Mike

[Karl_T]

As Mike says, an extra axis would make life easy for you on the handwheel.

If you don't have that, it would be possible to connect the handwheel to two inputs. I don't know if a MPG will power an input, you may need a jelly bean transistor assembly on each input. Then write a macro to move the selected axis so much for every pulse. This might be a tad tricky to make work smoothly.

As for your speed request, I know Camsoft sells a small inexpensive unit for analog input. Just read the voltage off a pot ten times a second and adjust feedrate.

Karl

[camsoft]

There is an add-on black box that allows a hand wheel to be connected when there isn't a spare connection available.

Usually there are several spare hand wheel / encoder connections available on most motion card models or else any un-used encoder connection can be used for the hand wheel such as Lohmeyer has on the 4th axis.

We offer this black box:
Standalone Hand Wheel Pulse Counter unit- Reads digital quad handwheel pulses through RS232 box or (USB add $35). $159


Shortly, we will be announcing in an upcoming NewsLetter that we will be able to run 4 handwheels simultaneously to offset / shift / adjust the tool path while cutting is in process.

Tech Support
CamSoft Corp.
[email protected]
PH 951-674-8100
Fax 951-674-3110
www.cnccontrols.com

[Al_The_Man]

Most Galil cards have auxiliary encoder inputs that if not being used can be used for gearing a handwheel off.
You can pick up handwheels off ebay for fairly cheap, see operator panels that have been removed for parts.
Another alternative is a 100p/turn encoder from Koyo, the only problem with this method, you don't have the indent.
Al.

[Lohmeyer]

I couldn't remember the exact part numbers before....

Galil Accerlera series cards (DMC-18x6) have two encoder inputs per axis. Plenty of extra encoders for hand wheels, etc. The Econo series cards (DMC-18x2) have one encoder input per axis, so you would normally buy a card with one more axis than you need for the hand wheel. I think this is why the DMC-1842 (4 axis) is the "common" card in the Econo series, vs. the DMC-1836 (3 axis) or DMC-1856 (5 axis) which are the "common" cards in the Accelera series.

My 3 axis mill has a DMC-1842, and as I said, the 4th axis encoder input is used for the hand wheel. I'm upgrading it with a 4th/5th axis rotary table by switching to a DMC-1856. It has 5 axis, with 2 encoder inputs per axis, so I can add a hand wheel and 4 other encoder inputs.