Commercial vs. hobby controls was Re: Bridgeport CNC retrofit rec...

Good morning all:

Well, this topic sure seems to be pressing a lot of buttons out
there; pardon the pun.

So, the question whether a particular control is better than
another is fairly subjective territory. Might as well argue someone
out of his favorite color.

That said, I'd say that our hobby controls are roughly equivalent
to the commercial ones of about ten years back. Some advantages,
some drawbacks - notably limited onboard memory and proprietary
hardware for the old commercial units. Being able to use commodity
hardware for CNC is a big advantage for a hobby guy.

Since it wasn't initially clear from Kim's post, Kim is using
TurboCNC after modifying it fairly heavily - and his discussion of
the advantages of TCNC here hinges on that. A lot of what he's done
is going to be in the next version anyway, but not all. Many of his
mods have to do with adding special canned cycles unique to his line
of work.

To address the open source aspect - I've kept TurboCNC open source
for the benefit of individuals like Kim. The majority of users don't
care about the source code. But to some of them, it's like dynamite
on wheels. Very powerful.

Since I, nor my contract employees, nor my ISP, will work for free -
it costs $20 to get the source code.

Having 27 versions around doesn't work in anyone's favor either,
and our "in your own doors only" stance on mods and re-distribution
keeps that in check.

I don't think any of that is unreasonable, and it actually improves
things IMHO. If TCNC were GNU GPL'd, or public domain it probably
wouldn't be as good.

Dave Kowalczyk
Mercer Island, WA
TurboCNC --> http://www.dakeng.com/turbo.html

--- In CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO@yahoogroups.com, Kim Lux <lux@d...> wrote:
> On Wed, 2003-12-17 at 03:01, ballendo@y... wrote:
> > Kim,
> >
> > Many great points. BUT...
> >
> > How many of them stand up without YOU in the equation???
>
> I agree. However, even a stock TCNC package is pretty close to what
> most stand alone controllers offer, even the old ones.
>
>
> > In other words, how many people do you think could do the pascal
> > programming you have done to make your version of TCNC? And of
those
> > who CAN program pascal, how many would have the time and
inclination
> > to help someone who knows machining, but NOT programming? (After
all,
> > you've just told us about two people who CAN'T get to where you
are,
> > or they wouldn't be asking you to set up their CNC...
>
> Agreed.
>
> > What this all leads to is that for most people, Doug is correct.
An
> > older commercial control (as he says, not necessarily 15 years
old,
> > when you have 15K bux to spend) will run circles-(and you know
why
> > I'm making that pun if you're familiar with TCNC-it currently has
> > problems with feedrates in circles, even in the V4 beta)- around
a
> > STANDARD TCNC install...
>
> V3 doesn't have these problems. I made my changed to V3, not V4
code.
> I started with V3.24c to be exact.
>
> > Once your mods make it into the TCNC pkg (if they ever do), THEN
the
> > argument(s) you've just laid out make sense for the "typical"
guy...
>
> > Having said all this, I do agree with some of your points. Ray
Henry,
> > I understand, taught himself programming so that he could do the
same
> > kinds of things with EMC that you have done with TCNC. And Art
> > Fenerty is learning a LOT about what needs to be in a commercial
> > level CNC control as he writes Mach2- he came from the
programming
> > side. So if the right person meets the right challenge...
> >
> > And I also agree that the timeframe for Doug's truth is
diminishing.
> > Hobby controls are getting a lot better, very quickly. Especially
> > Mach2, IMO. TCNC, without your mods, IMO still has a long way to
go.
> >
> > Right now, a guy who wants to machine, with 15k bux in hand, is
> > better off with an older control he can use immediately. Unless
YOU
> > are going to update TCNC for his machine and HIS needs...
>
> BTW: it isn't my doing that TCNC isn't updated with my mods. Powers
> higher than me control whether or not this stuff makes it into the
> public domain.
>
> > Ballendo
> >
> > P.S. I also agree with your statements about the value of
> > having "done it" yourself, so you can fix it...
> >
> >
> > --- In CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO@yahoogroups.com, Kim Lux <lux@d...> wrote:
> > > On Tue, 2003-12-16 at 09:40, doug.rasmussen@c... wrote:
> > >
> > > >
> > > > Hi Kim,
> > > >
> > > > First off, I didn't mean to suggest buying a machine that
old, I
> > was
> > > > only making the statement that I feel the commercial controls
of
> > > > that age generally have more features than the current hobby
PC
> > > > based
> > > > types.<snip>
[snip]