using a 4th axis

[lseguine]

Hello All,

I'm kind of a newby to the cnc world, was an old world machinist trained 50 some years a go.
But now I'm getting into this CNC stuff and liking it. retrofitted a griz bench top mill to cnc 3 years ago and got a feel of how things work, now I just bought a new Charter Oaks turnkey cnc mill. I ordered it with a rotary indexer installed with the idea of using it as a lath until I could afford a lathe. I have seen devices that function like a rotary but could also spin up to be a lathe spindle if wanted. In the demonstrations they did slow cutting using a mill cutter in the z axis and moving back and forth in the x axis to turn parts. that is what I would like to do on my new lathe.

My problem is I can-not find how to control the 4th axis, the rotary? I'm using CAMWorks to produce g code and it wants to use a C command?

any body have any suggestions?

Larry

[DaveCVI]

The usual convention is that X,Y,Z are the linear axes and A,B,C are the corresponding rotary axes. Thus A is rotary motion around the X axis etc.
Of course, one can set a mach3 machine up to use any axis letter for any axis (linear or rotary) - but it's usually best to stick with convention so as to avoid confusion.
Since the CAM output is using C, does the operation really require rotation around the Z axis of the part?
If not, you may need to look into the CAM settings for what axis is which and what is being used in the output by the post processor.
Dave