Re: [CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO] Re: CNC Painting

At 06:08 PM 11/20/02 -0600, you wrote:

>I'd use Indexer lpt as the control because quite frankly, it will be the

most robust, most useful, and best bang for the buck for THAT specific
application. It can be configured to "learn", so no

>radical Cam programs would be necessary to get it to run to the right

spots, after all, it is not like machining. Add to that, a pass or two on a
part, would allow you to fine tune accelerations,

>speeds and delay times because Indexers code allows for this *on the fly*.

Just a note or two here ... I-LPT is a timing and motion interpolator, a
driver. It needs to have a file of commands supplied to it before it does
anything. As itself it doesn't 'learn' anything either. It is however
robust, powerful, and user friendly and there are a number of ways to give
it commands. In DOS, one can 'type' a file to it. Programmers can open
software of their devising and write to it as if it were a disc file, and
in fact poll it for feedback.

I think the writer above must have seen my web page for Axis Wizard, and
has confabulated that with I-LPT, which AW does use underneath. AW does
have a teach function, is configurable on the fly, ditto tools can be
qualified at any time, keeps tool/fixture offsets, etc. I do thank him for
the [unknowing] plug!

>Why others have not applied this to your typical G-code control I do not
>know.

Yeah, me too. To be safe, I want to note Art also has a G-code front end
for I-LPT, which may be doing some of the same things as I did. I did
notice that a card he sent out some time back mentioned a feature I've had
for over two years now: tools can be withdrawn from part after any line and
changed, and the machine then will go back to the same point and run from
there. This in my case even includes non-indexed tooling, you just have to
save the new offsets from the original touch-off point before telling
program to go on. I don't know if he included re-trace in that either, but
in AW you can specify the number of lines to recut and it will also do that
before going on. I'm not too suspicious about things in general, but it was
obvious that I had these things running before Art did ... and if he chose
to use my ideas as examples, nobody could be prouder than me.