Independent axis control?

[myxpykalix]

Is there a way to manually control the X,Y,Z axis while the B axis is spinning?

When i input a manual command (MB360000) the B spins but won't let me do anything else. I would like to be able to just do a simple plunge manually to achieve this.

6746

Scott Cox answered with this-
Jack,
Just use M5 commands.
M5 0,0,-1,0,36000 will spin your indexer as your z drops to -1.
M5 0,0,1,0,0 pulls the z back up as the indexer spins backward to B=0
---------
however what I am trying to do is to have my B axis spinning while i have independent control of all my axis's so i can lower my Z and make the cut above, raise Z, move X, lower Z all while B is spinning and do this "on the fly" as opposed to his answer which is programming the cuts.
What i have found is by experimenting with bit depths you can achieve some different looking cuts and i don't want to make 10 incremental files with the various depths to do this.

To make my hollow spiral I have to give the file incremental Z heights till i reached center to cut out.

I suppose I could just do it manually on my Legacy but that kind of defeats the whole point.

[wooddr]

Jack,

Although I haven't used my indexer since I finished off my fireplace mantle, I do have my indexer setup so I can unhook it from the Alpha motor and then turn on the Harbor Freight motor to spin the lathe. Then I can do the other controls like you want to do. I also do that so I can sand my turnings with the lathe spinning at a lot faster speed.

Dirk

[myxpykalix]

Dirk I think i recall seeing pictures of your setup and thought of that when i was asking the question but i thought possibly since you set yours up they may have wrote in some type of control into the program to negate having to do it that way.

In the absence of being able to control it via the software rather than go to the expense and trouble to set it up like yours I could easily just chuck the parts up on my Legacy and do it on that.

I was trying to figure out ways to do most, if not all the things I do on the Legacy on my bot. Then i can go ahead and sell the Legacy.