I just upgraded from Mach4 stepper to Ex and servo motors. The machine has 2 Z axis and with Mach 4 I could route with a spindle on Z and drill / route on the second Z (A). I’m currently configured as dual use Router - Plazma with a second router mounted rather than a torch. I can home the second Z (U) and move it up and down via control keys. I also can turn on the second router using relay 1. How do I define the offset and zero for U and what modifcations are needed in the Aspire post processor to switch from Z to U?
Do you have a rotary on this system?
I don’t. it’s dedicated to dual z routing.
On EX you have to have a different profile for routing, and one for plasma. You also need to move your motor plugs around and swap your 14 pin cable when switching from plasma to router. Do you have a plasma and router profile installed?
There’s a section in the wizard for “dual use and rotary” that shows you the diagram of how it works.
Thanks for the quick responses!
I don’t use plasma or rotary and seleted the dual use router /plasma profile as it gave me some control of the additional z axis. In the past using mach 4 i could use z head 2 to drill 32 holes and then cut 16 parts using z head 1. I could do this cycle without changing tools or re-zeroing. In mach I modified the post processor switched Z commands for A and called a macro that would set the second Z (A) offset via a macro and G92.
I want to do somthing similar in EX but don’t know the workflow well enough to make a good plan. EX and servos are pretty sweet as they have solved all the past issues I had with steppers and Mach 4. I want to take this awesomness and cut / drill using two seperate heads without tool changes.