degrees of freedom Was: Angle Iron Ways

I was reading the description of hand tooling a precision flat and was
trying to figure out what he meant by "kinematic" since it could be
lots of different things, and one of my google searches lead here:

http://www.hexel.com/
http://www.prsco.com/rotopod.html

Call me sheltered, but I've never seen a positioning stage anything
like this. I've seen these things (which I now know are called
"stewart platforms" or "hexapods") in optics labs, but never on a
machine tool. But then again that shouldn't be too surprising because
I design high performance processors and systems for in my day job
rather than CNC machines.

What's neat about this one is that there aren't any hydraulic
cylinders or otherwise complicated mechanical strut actuators, but
simple fixed length struts. And what look to be very expensive ball
joint bearings, but I don't think they're really necessary.

Then I looked around some more and found this router. It looks like a
giant robotic spider took over his shop, but in a cool way. The lead
screws are enormous.

http://www.foxkid.net/cmm/platform/project-notebook.html

You obviously don't need REALLY need a 6-deg freedom system for a
router, but it might come in handy if you needed to carve a couple
dozen wooden indians or something.

On 8/18/06, turbulatordude <dave_mucha@...> wrote:
> --- In CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO@yahoogroups.com, "George Taylor, IV"
> <gtaylor@...> wrote:
> >
> > Dave,
> >
> > I give up - can't find the file. Which one in the CCED files section??
> >
> > Thanks
> >
> > George
>
>
> try here.
>
> http://lmwatts.com/shop.html
>
>
> I didn't see it in the files section either.
>
> Dave