Hi Kirk, You are asking very good questions. :-)
Kirk Wallace schrieb: > Is this document also valid? > > http://www.datron.de/fileadmin/media/pdf/Englisch/CNC/CNC_Large-format_GB_I_V10.pdf > Yes it is. > Here are some thoughts that come to mind: > > How much of the conversion do you want to do in-house? > I think there is a misunderstanding. We don't want to convert the old machines, we want to build new ones - including the mechanical setup. Everything on the machines we are using now is property. You are right, the main PC uses Windows and there is a separate motion controller. Actually it's also a PC running under DOS (this has historical reasons). But this and even the drives are made by Datron (not the motors but the servo controller attached to it). And we don't like it. We don't like the software and we like the mechanical setup less with every new version. > What resources do you have for software and hardware development? I think I should explain you a little bit how we work: We offer an own free Software for our customers to design Front Panels. We get these files and convert them to a milling program with another (own) software (nearly no interaction necessary). Then we mill, finish, ship them. That's why we could make a good price even for one panel. So yes, we need and have resources for software development. We have four programmers (and I am a programmer myself). I am running this business with my brother and he is an electronic engineer. Unfortunately he is quiet busy, so this is the weak point right now. And yes we have one mechanical engineer. I see it in this way: We just bought three machines (two for our location in Germany and one for the branch in the USA). And I guess in the next 5 years we need 10 further machines. We pay around 60,000 EUR per machine. So there is money in the game and I have no problem to raise it, to get the independency I want. > How much time can be allowed for the conversion? Can you afford to have > a machine down and a project manager tied up for a couple of months? > If we really decide to build our own machines, we would hire at least one person to do nothing else for I guess 1-2 years. Now the question might be: what are we doing here? We could effort a SINUMERIK control and this would be an out-of-the-box solution. The answer is quite simple: I believe in OpenSource software and at some points we have to control the software we are using. One example is the cutter radius compensation. Of course every g-code interpreter has one. But these are not useful for us. In the next version of our design software we want to integrate the possibility to define free contours for thru holes and cavities (via DXF-files). Since we want to show the customer the exact result in our software we need it there, too. And it should be exactly the same algorithm in the design software as in the milling software. So we wrote our own (and it's quite powerful now). So I hope you understand better what my intentions are. And I hope it doesn't sound too crazy. :-) Regards, Kai -- Schaeffer AG Dipl.-Phys. Kai Schaeffer Vorstand Nahmitzer Damm 32 Tel. +49-30-8058695-25 12277 Berlin FAX: +49-30-8058695-33 http://www.schaeffer-ag.de HRB 93611 B, Amtsgericht Berlin Charlottenburg Vorstand: Jörg Schaeffer, Kai Schaeffer Aufsichtsrat: Dieter Kersten (Vorsitzender) ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sponsored by: SourceForge.net Community Choice Awards: VOTE NOW! Studies have shown that voting for your favorite open source project, along with a healthy diet, reduces your potential for chronic lameness and boredom. Vote Now at http://www.sourceforge.net/community/cca08 _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
