> > And that is the misconception voiced all the time by frequent users of > > CNC systems. Perhaps you remember how to do all that stuff. I don't. > > So CNC is a leap harder to learn. > > If as you say you use the machine that seldom then even using the ELS is > probably a re-learning curve. I think most hobbyists who are willing to > invest the time and effort to convert a machine or the money to buy one > are likely to use it more often than that. > You'd have to ask users of my ELS as to how often they refer to the manual to use it. Since I wrote the software it's not fair for me to say it's easy when for others it might not be.
I do know I switch on the lathe. I chuck in the piece I'm turning and move to the point where I manually turn in the cross slide since I don't have an X motor set up on the South Bend yet. So say I face off the piece. I then set zero. MACH and LinuxCNC have a button for that. Move to the right a bit with a jog button and tap the BEGIN button. ENTER and then TURN again. Tap the END button and key in a negative distance towards the chuck which is the distance from the freshly cut face. ENTER, TURN buttons. Dial the X handle to roughly where I want my first pass and START. Now the display tells me to insert the tool into the work since it knows I don't have an X motor. ENTER to confirm and away it goes. When it stops, it tells me to retract the tool. I do that and press START. At this point I'd stop the spindle and measure. Figure out total depth of cut to get to my target diameter. Zero the X scale on the handle. Dial in depth of cut and press START. Rinse and repeat until depth of cut matches. Just like using a manual lathe except that instead of engaging the half nut and sitting poised to flip it off and then turning the big handle until the carriage bumps against a stop. With only one axis powered the ELS was designed to augment a manual lathe. Not be CNC. Not present itself like CNC. If I was doing it on the Gingery lathe which has a powered X then I'd do the same thing but select SCREW instead of TURN, set the pitch to the feed I want, Set the depth of thread and the depth per pass and press START. And wait for it to finish. But that's more CNC like. Once at the right diameter I'd maybe swap in the threading tool. Touch off to find the surface. Set the parameters for Pitch, Depth etc (although it can calculate that automatically for you) and because it's a different tool probably tweak the BEGIN/END positions. And since it's an old South Bend and I'm cutting metric I just press START and it does it. And again, if I don't have an X motor it prompts me to insert and remove the tool. If I do, it does it all automatically. That's about it for what it does other than taper turning if you have a powered X. So it's not CNC. Not meant to be CNC. But let me ask a question. If you buy a Break Out Board with an LCD display large enough to show 5 Axis DRO, Spindle Speed and Feed rate. And it has buttons that let you do what my Lathe ELS does for jogging and using the MPG to move the axis. If it can operate stand-alone like that. Essentially a manual mill where the motors and encoders (or open loop if you trust steppers) serve as the DRO feedback but each axis has power feed is it not still just a manual mill with power feed and DROs? Along with electronic speed control of the spindle. No more stepped pulleys. Now if this fancy Break Out Board c/w display and buttons cost around $200 and had an Ethernet connection that accepted messages as if it were a clone of a $200+ MESA Break Out Board what is the difference? And if this fancy Break Out Board had a few extra buttons like my Shumatech DRO has for finding center of a hole or edge or doing bolt circles. Or may a few other operations that MACH3/4 call wizards, all from that front panel, then depending on what you do, how often you do it, when do you need LinuxCNC? And I think fundamentally that's the real questions. A module that accepts say Ethernet in on one end and outputs motor control out the other is a black box. A black box just like buying an AC Servo Drive that accepts step/dir RS422 up to 500kHZ and 0-3000 RPM. When you need CNC you use CNC. If you are repairing something that you clamp in the vise and doesn't start off as a block of aluminium, the manual or power assisted manual method might be more useful. I think that's the future of the CNC home/small business model. And when you look at the 32bit ARM based CNC boxes available from China, all it would take is that Ethernet or USB connection and the firmware to interpret the protocol originally destined for a MESA or some other FPFA based BoB. > Les > > > > _______________________________________________ > Emc-users mailing list > Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
