[jbcj]

I have purchased a Bridgeport with a heindenhain 135 controller and I am going to switch to MACH3. Am I able to use the Heindenhain drives or do I need to replace them?

Jim

[H.O]

Hi,
What type od drives are they, step motor drives or servo motor drives?
If the drives are digital with a step & direction interface then yes, you can use them directly - but if this is a servo machine then they're probably not.

You need to find out how the drives are controlled, ie. step&direction, +/-10V, PWM, etc then we can figure out if and how they can be interfaced to Mach3.

/Henrik.

[jbcj]

The machine will arrive in about a week. Looking at some Heidenhain docs it looks like they are steppers. Not sure if has one drive for X,Y,Z or a seperate for each.

Jim

[PoppaBear10]

Jim,

If it is Step and Dir drives mach will drive them natively, (note you have high count encoders you should consider and exernal board like the Smooth Stepper).

If the Drives take an Analog signal, you can do it also, BUT, you will need something like the "Galil" motion board, this is a little more complex to set up, but worth it in the long run, and they can get expensive quickly.

scott

[Al_The_Man]

You may have a problem with the encoders or scales as Heidenhain use three different formats for their feedback signal, standard TTL (5v), 11ua and 1v p-p sine waves.
Al.