Re: [CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO] RE MAXNC, light machines, EMCO MAIER,BOBCAD and beta interface test

> The point of this whole brag is that I am not bragging but leading up to
> explain that in my quest to find solutions to a freindly cadcam software for
> dummies I had to buy all this to get the one or two pieces in between that
> would finish at least one machine for me so I could make the small guitar
> parts that is my real business. It is amazing that less than a year I have
> Ammassed what resembles the power tool section of a Sharper Image level Pawn
> Shop and I still am not able to produce one ellipse on any of these machines
> by CNC. I cannot even draw one that is to the specifications of the blue
> print I was issued two years ago. I still do those parts by hand. So ....

Buying tools to make tools to make tools to make musical instruments.
Sounds very familiar.... But I think I'm finally getting to the point
where I can start to make some french horn parts again.

Anyway, it sounds like your most pressing part is an ellipse. You
don't say if you are milling it, turning it, or what - only that the
cad package won't tell your machine to make it like you want.

My approach, not having a background in CAD, is simply not to waste
time on it. An ellipse is a fairly simple mathematical shape,
really a squashed circle. ie, while a circle has the equation

x^2 + y^2 = r^2

and ellipse has

Ax^2 + By^2 = C^2

(which can also be written x^2 + (y * squash)^2 = r^2)

If you can fit an equation to the part you need to make using a
spreadsheet or any programming language you are familiar with and you
know how to tell your machine "go to X, Y, Z at feedrate F" in whatever
language it uses, then all you have to do is write a program that
steps through your ellipse. Well, you also have to construct a
tangent to the surface, a perpendicular to that, and hop over half the
cutter diameter, but this is not all that complicated.

And you have to program in all your roughing or stock removal strategy
by hand, but you get perfect control over the results, rather than
having to do things the cad package author's way.

If you send me a drawing of the ellipse I'll put an excell spreadsheet
to demonstrate what I mean in the files section of the list web site
in a few days.

As for the stuff you have for sale, why not compile a list?

Chris