Re: [CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO] Re: Windows and black boxes

Hi All:

I just got back from vacation and have followed this thread with great
interest. The "black box" threads have been running for the last year or
more, but I notice the discussion getting more and more detail oriented as
it evolves over time. As the saying goes "the devil is in the details" and I
think alot of people will be saying "ohhhhh, thats the problem" when they
get to a certain depth. I have been tempted many times to switch to a "black
box", I have a rutex board here in front of me which arrived in the mail
almost a year ago as a sample from the manufacturer. While its true that it
would be nice to have a steady pulse stream created by an external
ocsillator, its my opinion that to try to do more than that may be biting
off too much to chew. The PC is very good at every job with that single
exception.
While watching most of the evolution of the controller programs out
there, I see that most of the changes seem to be due to constant contouring
constraints that the various programs have ( mine included ). To have this
in external hardware will be very difficult to achieve and IMO is the real
"Pandoras Box" of CNC. It is one of those problems that sounds easy, but the
deeper you dig, the more dirt in the hole. I suspect its one of those
"optimal solution" problems with no true correct answer. Given that it is
possible to do anything other than the pulse speed timing with the PC , I
have to wonder just how usefull the "intelligent black box" will be as
opposed to simply the "timer black box". To put the code for true velocity
contouring in a flash rom, will require alot of flash rom as the complexity
of the problem requires (at this point anyway) a high level language to
define the code. When the code is done and flashed, what you will have is a
box dedicated to a particular program. ( ie. Flashcut, Testra ...etc.). Even
if the protocols the various boxes use WERE open, I personnally doubt that
any further development would be done to create new GUI's , etc. once people
start to see the hidden complexities involved in their creation. It is
impossible to explain until you do it, but it is not unusual at all to get
at least a comment every couple weeks such as " Well, why not do this..it
should only take an hour or so of coding to add it" and try as you might,
you cannot explain the hundreds of hours it would actually take, or the
impossibility of doing it. I applaud the efforts of those individuals
working on these boxes (some have been in the works for some time ) and I
wait to see what the end results are as I'd love to have one to play with.
Marris's box idea shows a great deal of promise and we have discussed the
problems involved, but " having the miserable thing follow the resulting
path without stopping at the end of each wretched segment" is quite a chore
in itself and I think that where the line is drawn in terms of who's job is
what (PC or Black Box) will be the true test of its viability. Once this
"black box" reaches a certain level of complexity, it becomes a PC (only one
which can only do one job).

Just a thought, (Sorry for the verbosity, consider it two weeks worth of
submissions)
Art
Master5 Software
http://users.andara.com/~fenerty/master.htm