RE: KCAM

In order to drive my steppers I simply purchased three MOSFET Stepper
motor driver kits from Oatley Electronice in Australia, these are
opto isolated from the parallel port and allow for step and direction
input.

Here is a run down of how I have used it. If I go on a bit I just
want to be sure I have covered everthing I have experienced so far.

I have built a simple mill using printer parts and MDF for
construction see http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/~petermic/


I produce a 2d artwork using Corel and then print to file HPGL
( a note of warning ...
1. some windows HPGL drivers add a lot of fat to the print to file, I
have been producing simple artworks up to between 10-15k, I tried a
newer windows driver and it typicall produced a 50k file .This 50k
file will not work.
2. some drivers emplant file details such as directory and file name
embeded at the begining of the HPGL file, you either need to edit
this out or turn the feature off in the print driver.)

I then take the HPGL file and import it to KellyCam on a seperate PC
dedicated to the Mill.
Lastly I use the play button in the automatic tab on the CNC controls
window to run the Mill.

Another program I have tried (another good sugestion from the list,
lurking pays off) to create PCB artwork on is the freeware version
of EAGLE PCB from CADSOFT, On the user upload section of the cadsoft
site there are user files, the important file here is mill2.ulp. Once
this has been set up in the EAGLE sotftware you can create track
outlines for the mill to cut out.
Today was the first time I tried this in anger. Using KCam tried to
mill a board. I broke the first 0.6mm drill mill(mutter mutter) even
befor I had a chance to use it, but the second drill mill I had
(0.8mm) proved that this concept could work. A minor change would be
to increase the track width, I already increased the track size to
0.0032 but will try .004.

I hope the information I have provided will help in some way.

regards Peter.