[andymay]

Hi,

Pretty new to all of this, last winter I set to and converted an Emco compact 8 lathe to cnc control of the x and z axis. The mechanical side of things I understand well enough, the electronics not so much, so I used a 2-axis kit from CNC4you.co.uk. The breakout board I'm using is this one - https://cnc4you.co.uk/resources/KK01.pdf

To my surprise the whole thing works well, and is proving a useful machine.

For 'phase 2' I'd like to add variable spindle speed. A cheap eBay purchase and an hour with some spanners and I've liberated from a treadmill a suitable DC motor (2hp) and the mc2100e control board. My first thought was to control the spindle speed manually with a knob, but this turns out to be slightly trickier with this particular motor controller - it requires a 5V PWM signal to control the speed of the motor.

Then again - surely I can provide this straight from Mach 3 somehow? Doesn't that sound like a fairly elegant solution?

I notice the breakout board diagram has '+5V' all over the place on it......

Can anyone point me in the right direction how to do this?

Thanks in advance!
Andy

[Al_The_Man]

The conversion is not that simple, the PWM freg period for the input is only 50ms and also the input requires a series resistor for the opto as there is just a small value under 100ohms for the opto.
There is alot of info on the web for the nature of the input, I am just experimenting with a Picmicro interface for one right now.
If I get the time I would like to create a circuit to enable the Mach3 RS485 huanyang plug in to be used.
Al.

[andymay]

Hmm thanks Al - it was too much to hope it would happen to be straightforward!

A project to pursue down the line I think.

Maybe I'll be content with attempting to control it manually for starters

A