The collected works of GeneratriX - Page 10

Oh, the history of my life. Just add some photo mania and you're done!
...hey, look! ...there is an Edixa Prismat LTL!

No problem for me with the Rube Goldberg's approach... I always liked a lot "Wile E. Coyote And The Road Runner", in fact I'm anxiously waiting for the new 3D Avant Premiere from their last movie, so it is more than fine for me!

So... how good is the speed? Does it fully saturate the Ethernet bandwidth?

Well, after adding some very crude virtual resolution, and altering a bit brightness and contrast...

Even if it is just a highly optimized implementation from some derivative SVO (Sparse Voxel Octree) graphics algorithm, and if we assume it is not a hoax, then it would be cool for some complex Virtual Scenarios / Virtual Worlds.

Of course, the maths behind it looks like impossible for anything else than a highly repetitive use for a few basic models into scene.

A bit off-topic, but I still think that fractal algorithms still got a lot more to contribute to 3D technology... since there are not enough samples from their use on modeling and real-time animation/rendering. In fact I think that for what conceirns to 3D, they are almost totally under-used.

And for the rest, thanks @ajerimez by expanding my concepts into a more digestible way.

But of course, to say it short, I still got to see a release from any modeling/animation/rendering tool running with the assistance from their tech.

All in all, I reckon that it starts to look interesting.

Hello there!

Looks very nice, and seems to include some interesting features for desktop use. I can't say I would not enjoy some bigger workable area/volume, but I guess it is fine for a lot of uses, including maybe semi-serial PCB production. The price range looks very interesting considering the professional implementation quality.

Summarizing, I would enjoy a lot having one of thoses here!

All the best,
Diego

Hello there, Neko!



Of course, I would put it inmediately to work! ...sounds like the exact thing that every geek wants to do small lost-wax models for a home/small foundry, and things like that.

Well, that assuming that anyone else enjoys (like me) melting Aluminium, ZAMaC, and other soft metal alloys! If you tried that, you know how precious a good wax-model can be!

Greetz!
Diego

Looks tasty! Cuack!

Hello there, Hamei!



Well, I need to reckon I'm completely lost (seriously) and never heared about that! ...could you point me to some useful URL to start to grasp a bit the concept? (APT related, you know)

---

All in all, I knew from the start that FreeCAD is not into the same leagues that the biggest ones. My point was/is that it constitutes a more than interesting app if you use Linux (or any other POSIX with the required libraries) and believe me; you can do lots of things with it!

Just try it, and then let me know!

Of course if you are using a higher end IRIX box, we know there are better things into the the commerical lands, but this is FOSS, you know. At least for me, looks like the best FOSS tool around for the particular. Even on IRIX lands would be a more than nice addition! But my Octane needs some maintenance before to be able to try to port or run anything again.

Remember: I'm saying FOSS... don't bring to the table CATIA, PRO/ENGINEER, etc... because it could not compete (at least now) and there is no point comparing FreeCAD with something pushed ahead with dozens million dollars/euros of I+D behind.



Yes, that was my first point. But for some little lost-wax pouring models would be cool... amateurs, hobbyists, etc. There are many little useful things you can do even with such a reduced workable area/volume... but of course something around a cubic feet would be better!

The problem is, bigger workspace, bigger price!

Oh well, time to go outside to make some carpenter work for a loudspeakers order here!
All the best,
Diego

Hamei: I can see clearly that your reply requires and deserves good attention, and I'm willing to read it more deeply than the hours of the midday allows me to do (if you happen to access some spy satellite around the sky, you'll be able to watch me cutting/sanding MDF and wood at my backyard right now!) so I'll read it carefully along next hours!

Thanks in advance and... I'll reply soon!
Diego

Very good, now my mind is ready!



Nice, now that I put to work those old rear sprockets, I seem to recall that in the school we studied a bit about APT around 1988/1989... along with DBase-II/III, FORTRAN, TurboPascal, and a few other things... that would explain why it sounded slightly familiar but I could not tell why...

But now I recall what was the use of APT there!, I think it was used in company of an orangey italian mini-lathe!

Anyway, sorry, you're right... I always use Google and Wiki for everything, but this time I given up too soon when I noticed a lot of non related results. So, double thanks. Yes, here is the APT Wiki



Yes, I know what you mean. I can see easily the beauty behind such no non-sense approach compared to any amateur class GUI, but I would be lying if I say that my actual rythm of life can support such thing for routinary work.

I mean, most part of the time I use CAD to develop a model into a virtual environment, before to build the real thing... but that's the key point: 99.99% of the time I'm not doing it to produce anything serial. My actual workflow depends on CAD mostly to produce blue-prints that then I use to build equipment by hand! So, strictly speaking, most part of the time I only use CAD but not CAM... even if here and there I use CAM too to control a couple of very specialized tools that I've built here.



Very nice, looks like the kind of techie's black-hole in which I use to fall here and there!
...but I can't help thinking how good would be to write some good wrapper to put everything under some GUI! Don't hate me!



Heheh!, nope, I was not awared of that! ...very funny, I guess the dummy mylar-tape sequencer was a lot less heavy than fully equiped PDP-6! A couple places here in the city used to synchro slide projectors by using dummy sequencers with tapes like that. I think our Municipal Planetary used something on these lines, but I think in this case was real paper (not mylar).



Yes, I know that geometry constraints are still a bit hard under FreeCAD, and you got a good point there... but it is not so difficult to find the way to do it right, even if the app itself still has some bugs...



Again, I think the problem is that I say "CAD" and you hear "CAM"!
...of course an integrated CAD/CAM environment is always better, but even if the CAM side of FreeCAD is still too young, the CAD side has little or nothing to do with the first versions... this thing evolved a lot, and for a lot of things you can use it with confidence... even if you end exporting the models to some machine trajectory optimizer.



Well, I'm looking at the site right now: http://www.cncfocus.com/
...I see what you mean. I can't say it is not interesting, and looks very powerful.

Anyway... what is wrong with brand-new apps natively oriented to G-Code / RS-274?
It seems pretty soon FreeCAD could be doing it well:

Organization Chart
Robot Workbench



Well, there are tons of CNC oriented stuff, and people wants to do whatever they do every day faster... I can see clearly that I'm not the only one hurried to get the work done, but I need to accept that I still hold it with some lyrism (i.e.: refusing to switch to MS Win even if many things are targetted to such so called OS)







No, no, no Hamei! ...look at it (FreeCAD) now !
What I'm saying is indeed that three years ago such app was a complete looser and now we (they) have something that is very-very cool and has lots of features that previously were only found into commerical apps! And believe me, has a lot of power under the cover... for first time you can do real CAD work with a FOSS app!

Just go there and download the actual thing! ...if you tried it when I posted this topic for first time, then you got the wrong picture of it...

Anyway, I understand your point: you're talking of mature industrial-grade CAD/CAM. There's no discussion about that. We'll have to wait some years before to see something F.O.S.S. including the whole real dealt.



Ditto!



Sure, I understand. There are lots of things that can't be done with OpenCASCADE on actual state, and even worst, there are still a few resilient bugs (some boolean operations, etc.)



Maybe for simpler shapes without too complex and/or too many curves it could work. I'm still more biased to think about some retrofit including some heavy milling machine, and so on... mainly because any real CNC, even if it is a many years old second-hand, is way expensive in my country. And I'm not even talking about BridgePort style machines. Anything with the "CNC" acronym costs many thousands here, even if it can't work without an investment of many thousands more!

Oh, well... time to eat something!
All the best,
Diego

I'm using Twitter a little bit here, and it seems handy for some things... but no matter what, and no matter how many times I've posted there, I feel weird each time I tweet something!

Okay, it is done!

Of course, I really enjoy such kind of things.



I knew about that, but never caught my interest because when I looke at it it was still too green for any real use. I'm looking at their video right now and looks more interesting than last time I've visited their site...

I've read briefly the PDF about APT that you attached, and everything sounds extremely impresive considering it was around 1958. These giant milling machine at the page eleven made my day... since even for today's standards it is way awesome, and many factories would love to get one even if it has about 54 years as second-hand item!



Well, I could not criticize the hobbies from anyone else, since my own job is so wide in terms of variety of tasks that many times I don't know where is the end of my work and the begin my hobby... so... but, I guess you're right again!



Do you mean, things like the CNC-Sable or maybe bigger and more expensive things?

I know how to build a router, I've tried things along these lines for amateur CNC lands... but since some time now I was (I'm) more oriented to think that a retrofit-job for any good manual milling-machine would make the trick better than most part of the DIY routers that can be built in Argentina for under U$D2000.- (to say something)



I know what you mean, yes.

Anyway, the only time I was required to develop my own CAM software was the time I required to control a very diminute and specialized machine... and there was not any app readily available into the F.O.S.S. domain... for all the rest I use existant apps, including things like EMC2/LinuxCNC and FreeCAD.

Still, for the little app I mention, I discovered that was easier to write a brand-new app than having my brain burned by trying to customize EMC2/LinuxCNC for the required task and controller board... of course, I've developed the controller board along with the rest of the electronic an mechanical system too!

But I would want to add a main motif to develop and build DIY CNC things for some easy tasks: cheapness!




You should make kits, but there is no need to use an O2! You can use EMC2/LinuxCNC which works amazingly well for many things... if you happen to support the first months trying to configure the damn thing to work!

Hello there.

How big is the weight from Nekochan.Net database? ...I'm leaded to think we are talking about something big (or very big) considering the amount of high quality media.

Greetz,
Diego

That's almost exactly what I said above! But given my limited english, you said it better! ...you know, when I said:



...wanting to significate more or less what you said. As an example, even if you want to go for a brand-new machine (Taiwan), there are always things like this:



...but this is not the kind of machine I'm really thinking about. I'd rather would go for an old and greasy argentinean machine like this one:



...which is a real workhorse with which you can build (i.e.) a whole motorcycle engine if you need to. And there are already good samples of success retrofitting this kind of beasts to run with things like EMC2/LinuxCNC. Of course it will need some money to basic maintenance first, some space, and maybe a three-phase line but you can always use a phase converter.

The things that must be emphasized to read my above posts are:

1) In Argentina everything related to turnkey CNC solutions is valuated into the range of many thousand dollars.
2) In Argentine the major part of traditional heavy weight machine-tools manufacturers are not building anymore their own machine tools but rather re-selling some kind of lower-end asiatic version customized to fit a bit better the needs from their customers. But this benefit (lower price) is not translated to the customer or end user at all; because you'll end paying for the new low cost item almost the same price than for the old-fashioned but extremely reliable, built to last hundreed years, accurate and robust argentinean product!
3) In Argentina you can't import second-hand machine tools, because it is a violation to the customhouse rules. So, everything has to be brand-new , but the fees are insane.
4) In Argentina you can buy brand-new automation stuff, mostly limited to importations from asiatic nations or to manufacturings from local producers; but you can also find good spare components to build it yourself.
5) Still exists some rather limited access to the real thing , that if you can afford to it, and you can get either previous generation NOS or recent generation machines from traditional top quality manufacturers, or very recent higher-end and higher-quality asiatic machines... but this is mostly limited to medium-to-big size companies, because there are many "pluses" that you could not avoid into the form of insurance, extended warranties, maintenance contracts, obligatory support, spares, etc... the sum of this makes this stuff almost prohibitive for little companies (like mine). Modern machines are not built to last as much time as older stuff, you need to go at least with an insurance and extended warraties because you don't know when, but you already know that you'll need it sooner or later. Believe me, I know from two year old turnkey machines hurted to death because a spare needs to arrive from some other place and there is no local replacement even at the dealer's office!

But the bigger problem for us in Argentina is that, even if you can get from an eBay seller some top quality german or north-american milling machine for a few hundreed dollars, it will be completely irrelevant because will be nominatedly impossible to get the item here without paying *A REAL LOT* of money... and that if you are extremely lucky and your stuff does not get "stuck" into some customhouse wharehouse without hopes of freedom anymore.

Think of the actual version of my country into the lines of a '50's Russia mixed with a "Mad Max" film and some happy full-time tropical dance!

That's why second-hand, old-fashioned reliable machines are so interesting to my own taste. What do you think? Air-tickets for some other place? Anyone?

Hello there!



I knew it!!!, heheh!!!
Thanks to god you said it, because one of my customers is selling these shit stuff here in my country to jewellers for medal engraving! So, I'm free of charges! I've not launched the stone!



1) Sure! Anyway, better Aluminum and not MDF! Believe me, there are lots of commerical CNC routers here in Argentina being built over MDF frames!
2) Pretty sure too, yes... but you need to accept that in terms of assembly practicality the bolted construction is easier than weldments. To do it welded you need a good exoskeleton frame, already made with very tight tolerances, to help to hold the joins together in order to be sure that you'll not end with a useless structure once welded. Also, check out the very reduced workable area/volume. But I would go definitively for a casting structure, yes.
3) Do you really want to go all that far? Can be built some frame/structure with hydrodynamic ways for such a reduced workable volume? I mean... again, check out the travels! Look: "Travels: X-200mm * Y-150mm * Z-60mm" ...how would you manage to fit hydrodynamic ways into some desktop frame like this? Is it already possible at all with such a reduced target footprint? (It is not a retoric question, I'm honestly asking.)
4) Here I can not less than agree completely!
5) Ditto!, same as with the previous point (4), something like the Bosch GGS 27 L would be way better than that!

...and we should add...

6) The nuts and screws from the Sable machine are the same ones that you would use to assembly a very basic DIY machine, I mean, they seem to use common nuts and threaded rods from hardware-store! I mean, nothing with recirculating balls or at least some good Acme trapezoidal thread!



Sure!
Let's try with the next best thing for some extra dollars. What about something else from your country? Look:

Bodor CNC Router




Give them a slap on the wrist!



About U$D715.- at eBay U.S.A. for the whole thing, including everything, ready to hook up to your PC box... or if you prefer, you can buy the same thing in Argentina for U$D2599.- but that will buy you a parallel port cable and a cup of coffee too! Oh, well... ehrrr...



You're right, the picture is terrible! ...but I understand the idea!
So, any chance to see a picture from the kind of routers that you make reference? I'm genuinely interested, even if I know that the chances to get them here to my country are pretty narrow, specially if one refuses to sell a kidney to pay to the customhouses... but I'm still interested.



Never better said, and with your knowledge you should go... but I fear that with your (more polished and thorough) requirements, the overall cost would be from the very begin probably a lot higher than those U$D715.- from Sable... what do you think? Is it possible to put along something along the above mentioned lines for less than U$D999.- or something like that?

EDIT: Lots of typos...

Well, not that workhorse, but still!
Is it your factory, Hamei? It looks extremely nice!

Anyway... what has these giant thing to do with our conversation about quality/reliability for low footprint milling machines?

Now, talking seriously, what would be cool is some deskside-size milling machine with heavy duty capabilities... that's why I insist to look towards old milling machines instead of DIY routers... but since there is no real rush, I'm open to any good alternative/idea.

Around the '60's / '70's there was some generation of argentinean milling machines, fully manual and with 3D capabilities, enough dependable to be in almost every single workshop toolmaker and enough good to be still now operating with no more problems than an occasional change of ball bearings.

What is wrong with such approach?

The problem is, the little models are sold faster, and I don't want something like a Cincinnati No. 28-120 or anything like that!



Yes, I own both things and I can use them, what is your idea?



Yes, I own an arc welder and a spot welder (this one is manual) and I can use them, sure!

Hello there!



Sure, I know, I thought that was clear. I mean, the problem is, I could apply for both requirements... which is first achieved is a matter of priorities.

Let's say: I frequently use plain parts with complex 2D shapes; that would be fine even for a 2.5D CNC router. Then I also need many kinds of fixation pieces with slightly more complexity into the 3D domain, different metals relatively more mass; that would be nice for a slightly more heavy duty CNC milling machine.

So, I think eventually I'll need both. That's because I'm sure a CNC router will begin to wear very fast as soon as I start to put the heavy stuff there, loosing exactness for more precision demmanding 2D work.

But you're right. I don't think a vertical column mill will do any good for PCB.



They had an importer a year ago, then the stock flown (seems it sold well) and never heared from them again. By those days I was almost ready to buy one from them, and then aborted the mission because they used a proprietary controller that required MS Windows to work... that was bummer, because I don't wanted to remove their nice controller to stuck inside a DIY thing just to be able to run EMC2/LinuxCNC, consumming more money, resources, time... loosing some nice status report features, etc...

But the frame seemed to me between the best things around the country; anyway it is not locally available anymore.



Touché!
Yes, the Barbero unit from above posts is a pretty big machine; but they used to build some kind of variation within the size of a minibar refrigerator, or a deskside Onyx if you prefer!



Well, you know (maybe better than anyone else here) that I was never good "Guitar Hero" player, and I always loved to compose my own music-sheet to play my own song!



Yes, I know there are very nice things that can be built into this field. I know. It is just I wanted to avoid me some time building my own tooling because because I was already there and I know the time it takes.



That sounds so clever, 老師i!

Sure, even fugu! ...that assuming you are lucky to eat a good cut!

Never had the stomach to try snails, but I'm gonna try some day. Fried frogs are a very good dish, the problem is, I need about two dozens of them to fill my appetite... I'm sure at some point some crazy scientist will come with 2 Kilograms frogs including an altered DNA! But if it works like with the chickens, the hyper-frogs will not be tasty anymore!

Heheh!, good point! The thing is bigger than him!
...now that you posted the picture, I recall there are some 4 Kilogram hyper-toads at some place, but I was not sure if hyper-frogs would exist too!

So, is it a frog or a toad?

If it is a frog, I'm sure the guy at the pict will be full with that one!

EDIT: Use some translator, but it seems the giant frogs are not a joke at all, let's see:

Hello there!



Yes, there are actually many of them. But I was always more interested in 3D, and I'm very accustomed to it, so, I could not tell you if the 2D offer is bad or good for Linux. CADuntu/LibreCAD and QCAD both seems pretty good, but I'm not a user for any of them.

To be really honest, after I installed and tried FreeCAD, never touched anything else... Art O fIllusion feels like a joke compared to it, and BlenderCAD feels like the kind of a frankensoftware very cool for games or movies but with nothing to offer (at least by now) into an industrial CAD/CAM sense. Love it or hate it, but FreeCAD is the only thing capable enough to compete with a commerical CAD/CAM solution... and every day it gets better and better.

Just add the "Devel" repo to some linux box, and try every night some bleading edge features. Seriously, to my humble oppinion, it is the only F.O.S.S. thing capable for 2D/3D parametric design with a modern GUI today.



Sure, and I already praised many times the excellent quality for the RISC OS apps! I'm mostly sure the RISC OS apps designers are working with strongly task-oriented paradigms, pretty much like lots of IRIX apps that many people here knows very well.

The thing is, I don't own a RISC OS box, and sometimes you need something more portable. If you need to go extreme, there are things for iPad around ( eDrawings For iPad ) and I'm sure you could not go too wrong with it if you need a good viewer. But I don't think you can create anything using it.

So, I'm actually trying to train up my mind into the use of FreeCAD because it seems the kind of app that would be pretty soon avalilable into the repos of all kind of Android and/or Ubuntu tablets pretty soon. And anyway it never demanded from me any extra learning over the general knowledge that one commonly has for the use of all the previous CAD/CAM apps. And it's free!

I would try it in aras of fun, because I never tried a RISC OS box, and this would take me close... but not real need at all. I mean, I already solved my design requirements with a bunch of fixed apps since several years now.

But yeap, some RISC OS trial would be fun!

Exactly! A world of difference!

Looks very nice, I like it a lot!

Sure Hamei, relax, I'm not leaving the trenches!
...my actual state is that the work from theinonen looks very nice, without considerations of what he uses to do it.

In fact, for my own case I consider my requirements for CAD/CAM/EDA/Etc... all of them solved for now. I think there are about six F.O.S.S. apps, and a couple commercial apps, that combined are more than enough power for my workflow; or at least for the major part of it.

The theinonen's approach is powerful and simple for many cases, and I used something like that quite a lot years ago; but right now I need the flexability of 3D. And I don't care if it is new or old; in fact I consider 'Inventor View' one of the biggest time saver at the time of preview to check the inside/outside of a model. I can zoom-in and zoom-out, inside and outside the model, rotate, translate, change perspectives, etc... no matter how hard you worked to get a wonderful model done, if it is relatively complex, your mind can loss some details and there you have 'IVVIew' and 'Scene Viewer' to tell you everything on a blink. And that's a big loss to consider if you work plainly 2D, generating your own hand-made perspectives, of course!

But sometimes, if you need to arrange an "Owner's Manual" or a "User Guide" to illustrate the use for a single issue product, I think the theinonen's way is very handy and more than useful.

So, everybody happy!

Oh well, time to back to work!
All the best,
Diego