[Coco] [Color Computer] [coco] Coco CNC

[Gene Heskett]

On Monday 12 February 2007 03:11, George's Coco Address wrote:
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Gene Heskett"
>
>> X is normally the left to right motion of the table the piece to be
>> carved on is attached to.
>>
>> Y is normally the to/from, or across the width of the moving table
>> motion.
>>
>> Z is normally the up/down motion of the carving spindle, so that one
>> can do 3d carving.  On bigger machines, the spindle is rigid in the
>> castings and the same effective motion is done by raising or lowering
>> the table itself, called the knee.
>
>Gene,
>
> I'm confused enough at work. Don't mess with my head
>
Mmm, sorry George, didn't know I was.

>I'm not sure about the "standards". Where I work, in  MAZATROL the  Z
> axis goes from left to right. The X axiis goes from "to and from my
> belt buckle" the Y axis goes up and down.
>
>The "4" axis turns the table/tombstone and/or the 5 axis turn the rotary
>table/ or whatever is connected to that driver.
>
> I/we could be wrong, but that's the way these machines work where I am
>currently working.

Ahh, Mazak. Its entirely possible they have their own 'standard' axis 
assignments.  I was describing how EMC does it, and EMC is direct from an 
NIST project started back in the late 70's to facilitate the 
modernization of our industrial facilities, published as PD at the time 
and I assumed (incorrectly it seems) that all the other commercial 
implementations would have followed suit.  EMC2 is a total re-write to 
workalike but better since we have computing power 100x what was 
available then, GPL'd, and is yet today under active development by about 
10 core developers with as many as 25 cvs commits a day.  These guys have 
in fact gone into shops such as yours and retrofitted several Mazak's to 
be operated by EMC2 or later (EMC2.1 is out now).  EMC can handle up to a 
6 axis machine, with much better motion ballistics that can lead to 
considerably faster production.  EMC2 improves on EMC's motion ballistics 
by another order of magnitude due to finally treating a backlash comp 
move ballisticly, which the original didn't, and that of course limited 
its top speed to something that could still handle the backlash 
reversals.  Of course it can also handle spindle controls, coolant feeds, 
tool changers etc.

The video interface itself is a marvel to watch.

They do a lot of development on IRC first, then commit.  I sub to 3 of 
their mailing lists and fail utterly in keeping up with these guys, but 
it sure is fun too.

-- 
Cheers, Gene
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Copyright 2007 by Maurice Eugene Heskett, all rights reserved.