[CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO] Compucut ?

Rab,
You have had some great answers, and I would just like to add a few lines
about what we are up to at compucut.
Yep, we are a dad and lad team,
Yep, we are better engineers than we are business men
Yep, I make them myself in batches, so your delivery time will vary
slightly depending on where I am in the batch when you order.
Yep, we offer a unipolar stepper motor driver, software, manual, and
support
(yep, I had a play with a 7475 plotter too!)
Yep, we are an entry level CNC provider.
Yep we are proudly DOS based, and no the screen isnt amazingly graphical
Yep we specialise in bench machines (bridgeports and upwards are a bit
big)
Yep we do take proper cuts doing proper jobs, no its not just a toy.

I personally think the HPGL, Gcode debate is a bit of a red herring, they
are both ways of using information, and it is motor steps on the machine
that are important. Once you have done a bit of CNC and are happy that you
can drive steppers, I think the interesting areas are data entry, and
machine design.
We have looked at digitising tablets, cordless mice (pretty good res now),
digital cameras, scanners, digitising machines, and CAD. The compucut
program accepts data from external souces - we do not incude a cad package
with our program as there are so many good ones about already.
It is this data aquisition phase that will vary depending on what you want
to do. the compucut program will move in relative, and absolute 3d moves,
but it is up to the user to drive it.
The compucut program could be described as a language (70 commands) that
helps you to manipulate your data to produce a compucut cutter path file
that will drive the steppers via the compucut interface. HPGL is one of the
ways to enter data (from a CAD package) into the compucut program.

Yep, there are other stepper drivers around, and there is other software.
Ours will run large motors but I dont use compucut beyond a double stack 32
myself.
with this in mind we come to machine design which is my favourite bit.

I have got a myford lathe, and its great!, I could cover it in wires, and
one day I might, but it is such a handy tool as it is for 99% of my jobs I
want to leave it alone. Our approach is to use the myford to make the bits
for a CNC machine
purpose built for a range of tasks. There are lots of iron xy tables about
that with decent leadscrews, nuts, and slideways, can perform very well
under stepper control. "Compucutter" was specially designed for MICE
(model internal combustion engine) builders, and GTBA (gas turbine builders
association) users, a very rigid machine that performs its task very well
(holds 1/4 thou resolution) but is not your first choice for many other
applications. Not to worry it didnt cost too much to build, and you can
pinch some of the bits to make your next machine for your next job.
We have built, many machines that look a bit odd, and do limited tasks very
well to try and show what can be done, and to set folks imagination alight.
Though we have just finished a mill with traditional X,Y,Z setup, and based
on readilly available iron castings.

enough of my ramblings (sorry Bill if I went on a bit)

happy new year

Quinn
www.compucutters.com