My fuzzy crystal ball says eventually we will get small cheap controllers for CNC. Similar to the ones used on 3D printers. We could download with USB or use ethernet to download, even SDcards or usb keyfobs, but the small controllers are used locally to manage the hardware (start/stop/jog,etc) and run the GCode engine to drive the machine.
Shopbot has done this, but their controllers are not small or inexpensive, and they really want you to purchase the whole rig as a single unit from them. This will allow you to design/build elsewhere (desktop, laptop, tablet, cloud, download design from a 'store' - thingivese.com like), and just have a 'run it here' model if that is your desire. Even the Easel kind of design software (instructables.com cloud tool, that can send designs directly to a desktop light duty CNC machine). This market doesn't change quickly, but it does change. When we will see this as the predominate mode, I don't know. Years ago, working at one manufacturer, the design/drafting crew ran solid works, and rendered lots of pretty images, but also code that was downloaded to manufacturing machines directly (by the production staff, not the designers!) from our datacenter. All shop tools used shielded ethernet (in conduit due to the environment) for machine communication and monitoring. Even they were going in the direction I suggest above for smaller installations, but they had the budget and were doing it to save/make big bucks. If it didn't increase safety, reduce manpower, decrease overall design/manufacturing time, lower inventory and sell just-in-time manufactured components, all focused on increasing long term profit they didn't do it. -- This tells me we will see this concept 'trickle down' over time as we upgrade how we do things in all our shops. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
