Motion Control Advice Needed for Custom Machine

M

Thread Starter

Markf

Hi All,

First time here.

So working on a project where I want to tapper fibreglass battens. Have the basic machine drawn up and worked out just need to work on the control solutions.

It will have a X feed that feeds the batten in. Then ideally 2 Z feeds with grinding wheels that will effectively pinch the batten from either side to control the tapper. This is all fairly straight forward and can just have one motor top and bottom going same direction so it pinches the grinding wheels onto the batten.

What I then need to be able to do is have a mode that runs one motor forward and one reverse so the centre of the grinding wheels can move up and down to align it with the centre of the battens. As the battens are different thickness the centre of the pinch in the grinding wheels needs to move up and down depending on the thickness of the battens.
the batten stock thickness wont change on the fly so the height setup can be done and set then the taper mode activated. They don't both need to work at the same time.

I hope that makes sense. Little hard to explain.

So looking for hopefully a commercially available solution that is fairly easy to setup and not too expensive as trying to prove concept at this point.

I have just built a Root2CNC of thingiverse as a home project which is a 3D printed CNC router. It uses Arduino controller with Ramps 1.4 board and I have been running it on Estlcam which has been really easy to setup and get running. I could see that setup working for a model and testing but would obviously need bigger drivers for the real thing.

So do you think I can adapt some readily available software to suit or am I better to start from scratch and write or get a program written. Not sure which would be the best platform. Don't have much of a programming background but keen to learn.

Any advice greatly appreciated.

Cheers
Mark
 
Top