Re: greetings from new member

David Forsyth wrote:

> I've just joined since I'm busy building a 3axis minimill.
> I'm using 2 ex-dotmatrix printer mechanisms for the XY slideways,
> giving about 8 inches travel each way. I will have to build an
> overhead gantry for the Z axis. Not sure what to do for slideways
> there as yet, poking around for another dead printer.....

Well, I don't know how accurate this thing will be. I suspect you'll
be disappointed by the lack of rigidity.

> My big interest is really in programming this thing. Yeah, I
> downloaded DanCAM, and will be making my interface complatible with
> that software, but I'd really like to write my own stuff.
>
> Web searches have turned up plenty of products, but no theory on
> generating toolpaths, no sample sourcecode, nothing of interest to a
> rabid programmer >-:

Oh, well, you should look at the EMC system. Complete source code
is available on the web site. Most of it in C++, some of the older
components in plain C.
See web page at : http://www.isd.cme.nist.gov/projects/emc/emc.html

You can take a look at my web page to see my machine, which uses
EMC, and some of the projects I'm doing :
http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~jmelson/machining.html

Jon