As part of the motion cycle in the system there is one point when we need to move 4 axes together at the same time. I’m trying to figure out whether to use gearing or multi-axis as they both seem to be able to achieve the same result. All of the axis use the similar types of motors and lead screws, will move in the same direction.
With gearing I think I would need to turn gearing on and off when I want to switch between synchronized motion and independent motion, whereas I think we multi-axis I can use the multi-axis when I want to move in the axes in sync, and the normal axes when I want to move independently.
Have I understood this correctly and do you have recommendation of one versus the other.
We would recommend multi-axis. Both should work for you but multi-axis provides a bit more agility with what you can do with it. Also mutli-axis will propagate errors to all of the axes in the group. This could be an important safety feature as you wouldn’t want the other three axes to continue if one gets a fault and stops.