Re: [CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO] EMC and DROs

> There is a Visual Basic DRO program in the files section that I
> wrote. It has the source code and seems to work pretty well.
> Not alot of features, but you can add whatever you like if you
> know a little VB. Needs the Kulaga/Mauch encoder card.

Hmm, on a related thread, I am not sure that I am going to be able to
afford to do a full two axis CNC conversion on my larger lathe this
year. Something I used on it in the past was a 'smart' DRO that knew
curve I was trying to cut, and would tell me positioning errors from
it in addition to the actual coordinates, to guide my manual cranking
of the handhweels. I wrote that in qbasic...

Now that I have a mostly useable stepper and ballscrew conversion of
the cross slide, it occurs to me it would be nice to do something
similar, only to have the computer automatically position the cross
slide on a calculated curve, in response to manual or gear power feed
movement of the carriage. In other words, I want a tracer attachment
where the 'template' is just a set of coefficients for a polynomial
equation.

I hesitate to write this in qbasic given that the computer sometimes
hesitates for a fraction of a second when running it, although it may
work for extremely fine finishing feed rates which is when it would be
most critical anyway. I'm torn between writing a simple assembly
language program that can be started from actual DOS and entirely
takes over the computer (possibly requiring a reboot to exit), and
trying to hack up bits and pieces of EMC to do the task.

Any thoughts?

Chris Stratton

-------------------------------------------------
Christopher C. Stratton
Engineer, Instrument Maker, and Horn Player
ccs@... 617 628 1062
http://web.mit.edu/~stratton/www/brassbuild.html