Vortex Rotary Axis Close Loop Stepper Motor Update

Hey everyone. We have an update on the Vortex Rotary Axis and closed-loop stepper motor!

For more details, check out our blog:

Hey. Fairly new here, but excited to get my new altmill and vortex set up soon. Thanks for the update. One thing I noticed was that you mentioned the y-axis motors are locked when using the a-axis. I thought the whole point of 4-axis control was that we’d be able to use the y-axis as well during rotary cutting, no?

The older control boards could only control 3 axis. So you had to switch off the y to use the a axis.

With the SLB and SLB-ex we can control all 4 axis independently and should be able to do proper 4 axis milling.

(Assuming I understand things correctly - I am not positive if GSender is ready for 4 axis yet)

@CharlieMike Yes, I know the original longboard was limited to3-axis only.

In the update they say the following, which implies that, even with the new updated board, the y-axis will still remain locked preventing us from using y-axis and a-axis simultaneously to allow us to do more complicated rotary carving

There are several benefits of this new arrangement:

  • No more need to toggle between Y-axis control and A-axis control.
  • The Y-axis motors stay ‘locked’ during use of the A-axis, preventing any possible drift while cutting rotary axis projects.

Am I missing something?

A few bullet points below the ones you quoted:

  • Capability of full simultaneous 4-axis CNC programs, allowing for completely new types of geometries to be machined in one setup.