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Forum Index : Other Stuff : Home Built CNC Project
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Prime_8 Regular Member  Joined: 07/12/2014 Location: CanadaPosts: 51 |
looks cool. buts 200$ takes it off my table . LOL Old coder, and bodger of things that may spark. |
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Bryan1 Guru  Joined: 22/02/2006 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1111 |
Yea I had a look at it and for $250 US seems a tad rich for hobby work and with it saying it needs 2 gig of ram and 64 bit to work thats out of my ball game. |
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| Prime_8 Regular Member Joined: 07/12/2014 Location: CanadaPosts: 51 |
i have a feeling i may just fart about with making my own CAM . in 2.5D mode it should not be too hard to make a waterline and then scan line passes. but that is where i leverage what is my time making code worth vs just using linuxCNC or such on one of my old XP rigs. (re-purpose one with a dual boot ) . there seem to be quite a few nice ones , i even found a free cad cam , but what they wanted for registering a free lic was a bit too extensive IMO. ~ DesignSpark Mechanical ~ i could see if you used thier other stuff for making whole device board sand such . Old coder, and bodger of things that may spark. |
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powerednut Senior Member  Joined: 09/12/2009 Location: AustraliaPosts: 221 |
well, heekscad / heekscam might be a starting point. used to be a free open source product, but I'm not sure if it still is. |
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| Bryan1 Guru Joined: 22/02/2006 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1111 |
Heeks cam is open source but for the stable version one the maker does ask for a 20 pound (pommie currency) fee. The only limitation is one needs to remove some code and a browser window popsup with the page to buy the product. I do intend to use that 2.4gig off line for now as I will have either buy a wifi card for the puter or run an ethernet cable to my new work room in the new shed I'm making. That will be some time away as I'm still concreting the main part of the shed which so my wife can setup a studio. (which takes priority if one want to keep living). I do have Mach3 here to use and for linux I will have to find another IDE hard drive to put the ubuntu/emc2 OS on and I already have the disk for that OS here ready to go. Recently I got Sprint Layout 6 so first I need to see if will run on a 32 bit puter and start milling pcb boards as the first project for the cnc. Applying for jobs left right and centre but it is starting to look like once one turns 50 one is on the work scrapheap but still getting a few contracts with gearbox repairs here and there. Looks like a good year with batteries which will not only pay the bills but provide some play $$$ for my projects. Prime if you do want to goahead and have a go at designing a 2.5D system you have one test dummy here...... Cheers Bryan |
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| Prime_8 Regular Member Joined: 07/12/2014 Location: CanadaPosts: 51 |
I'm just that type of nut . lol . i would love to figure out a way to cut nice 3D lines . i have figured out a safe way to cut in 2.5D with a bit more automation . usually in 2.5D you set tool height and then start passing XY points. your rig smoothly moves through the XY points. Rite now if you send Z value to my mini mill , it will do any Z value first before moving along to the new XY . what I need to sort is the Z axis delta vs XY . and like how i decide how many steps to feed XY per each motion along a line , i need to figure Z's place . so if delta Z is + , it Must be done before any XY change , and if dleta Z is - , well it must be done after each XY step set. I just have to sort that into my firmware now and then my firmware will support 3D linear moves. I have a spot of contract code to do before I can fart about with the PC side. but I should be able to support CAM from .obj ( and any static game mesh format ) by moving a virtual tool head over the mesh . I would just change up the code i used to place the tires of the truck , and use a tool shaped mesh for the collision test against a target ( stock & parts ). Old video of my depth testing code in action. I have to think if i replace the ground with intended shape and work surface a stock definition , replace a tire with a tool I could virtually pass the tool about the work area. :: pycam looks great except 1 thing ... the compute time even on my quad core W7 rig is measured in hours for simple shapes ?!! im trying to use the HeeksCad i DL from git hub . i need to figure out the interface. if i had cash i would use MeshCAM but lacking $$ and being a crazy build it myself type, ill prolly end up making something that uses 3d engine and collision detection to move a virtual tool around a mesh . Just have not figure out how i will do that just yet . I know i can surface pick against a mesh in code. the nicer CAM packages have advanced tool path options for max speed and low tool stress . I suppose i could use EMC2 live disk . seems some fella made a linux cnc that runs from a live disk ( usb / cdrom ) . Old coder, and bodger of things that may spark. |
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| Prime_8 Regular Member Joined: 07/12/2014 Location: CanadaPosts: 51 |
hmm , i just watched this YT vid http://youtu.be/ZxluRPKOUfA never thought to check for a blender plugin . Now i have a reason to finally learn blender. i will have to see if it works with the blender i use now for texture making (game work ) from what I see it does exactly what I was planning on doing but way better ! . Old coder, and bodger of things that may spark. |
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| powerednut Senior Member Joined: 09/12/2009 Location: AustraliaPosts: 221 |
I came across this program today which may be of interest: http://www.scorchworks.com/Fengrave/fengrave.html Free txt to g-code program for engraving. Looks like it also does image to g-code. If you don't mind using somebody else's library with your code, there is opencamlib here: http://www.anderswallin.net/cam/ |
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| Bryan1 Guru Joined: 22/02/2006 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1111 |
G'day Guy's, Well I did have to go back to find this thread and as I have said I bought a desktop computer from Cashies with win10 on it which was buggy as hell so I put my old Win7 home premium disk in and installed that and some of that fun is shown in my win10 thread. Anyway getting closer as I have bought 3 off DM559 micro steppers and a USB controller board. Here's a pic of the new board setup  Now on reading the DM556 datasheet one does need to put a 2K resistor on the P and D lines to reduce the current if 12 or 24 volts are used. Now as the schematic for that USB board does have a 10 volt input and in the drawing it shows 12 volts to that pin so with that old simmstick proto board I put a 7812 reg on and so far 3 off !k resistor in series to get 2K as going thru the Adelaide hills all the electronics shops had closed that I used to go to. So went into Home of 12 volt and grabbed a 300 pack of resistors for $10  typically 2K wasn't in there so 2 off 1K's will do the job.Now in my gear like I found those 50 amp current sensors only to find they are no longer made I new I still had some 7812 chips left. Well the only ones i found was in a DPAK form smd and found it was easy to solder them to the proto board. There is a 100uf 50 volt cap on the input and a 10uf tantalum cap on the output. I will put more earth pins on there to cater for the limit switch's etc. So getting there and soon I do hope to get this running, I do have a mate coming down this weekend to have a look as when connecting something after close to 10 years a second is better than one. Cheers Bryan |
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| Bryan1 Guru Joined: 22/02/2006 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1111 |
G'Day Guy's, Well that PCI card turned up while I was away at work last week so today was time for some fun to see if I could get it working I setup my cnc the old way and the old controller board was just how it was left turning on nicely. So fired up Mach3 only to find it hang totally where only a extension cord reset would work  Well on booting up again wifi was totally lost so no net and the computer just hung again so decided that was it.  time to give LinuxCNC a go. On the install it couldn't find the wifi so did a minimal install as it couldn't connect to the net. This pci card did come with a disk and driver for linux so gave that a go only to find it failed due to the destination folder not existing. So had a play in the terminal making the new folders when Rodger rocked up so that was the end of the days play as the mossies were trying to carry me away. As this distro is a minimal build it will take time to upgrade it but once I get this driver installed I reckon the cnc will become live again. Cheers Bryan |
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| Bryan1 Guru Joined: 22/02/2006 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1111 |
G'Day Guy's, Well had a go this morning and YES I did get the F3 screen lit up so tested one of the axis only to find the board was like hammering and no step movement. Now the E-Stop I have setup on the CNC does show on the linuxCNC screen as off so there is a connection thru the PCI card. Yesterday where I had to use my mobile in usb tethering mode just to get the net wasn't needed as the ethernet cable going to my shed wifi router just worked Also made those 2 folders for the starex driver only to find the command failed due to no rule in the folder Got a few jobs to do on the farm so more play later in the day Cheers Bryan |
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| rogerdw Guru Joined: 22/10/2019 Location: AustraliaPosts: 696 |
Pleased to see you're making progress Bryan. Might be slow, but it is forward. And thanks for the tour and the bits and pieces yesterday, very interesting to see what others are up to. I enjoyed the wildlife on the way in and out too ... a whole heap of roos just chilling near your gate.  Cheers, Roger |
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