Lez wrote:
> A few people seem to be saying they are going to build something along
> the cnc lines etc, what about a concerted group effort, organize
> ourselves etc and build a one-off machine thats been well thought out
> with the knowledge of us all.
>
>
> 1) Its a cooperative build, everyone has a right to their opinion,
> disputes settled by a quick straw ballot/vote etc no point arguing over
> an item for weeks slowing us all down.
>
First off, votes don't count much if you haven't actually done both of what
ever is in question. The group can easily be tremendously wrong on a vote,
simply because one way seems better than another from looking at it, if you
don't actually construct both.
Hardly needed anyway, nothing to stop anyone from departing from instructions
if they want to do it a different way. Two or three different ways isn't too
many either.
Can't imagine anything coming close to as fast as what I've got for being put
together. You could easily use printer rails etc if you like in place of them,
but you'll have to spend more time getting them aligned. Once I give basic
dimensions on mine and how to put together there won't be need for much else, if
you want to make it different it'll still be a good basic guide. I could easily
put together 10 of my mechanics in a day, maybe just an afternoon. I doubt many
others could do that. At only $75 or so for the hardware, it's a great thing to
start with, then do more if you decide you need it.
> 2) It may be best to do this in separate groups for the hardware part of
> the build to geographic availability of parts. (country not county!)
Most of it is relevant enough I doubt too many would complain much, since
drilling is the hardest part left of making your own good boards.
The real thing is for me to decide to donate my board layout and code. Both
are superior. I understand how to do binary math properly, which very few
people really do. Perfect binary division, so it always ends up on the correct
step whether it's one or a few billion steps, and through all three dimensions.
Really I totally abstracted the line drawing algorithm, it's not tied to which
distance is longer like most are given, so is a loop and generalized for all
dimensions. In other words you can add more dimensions by simply adding another
variable set in the loop. It can move through 20 dimensions all at once and
arrive at the correct point in all at the same time without error. Heck most
people lack so much understanding of the math they say you have to use floating
point (which means 'someone else's work', that you have no idea if it's truly
accurate). You never, ever, ever have to use floating point to do math, it can
all be done straight in binary if you know what you're doing. Anyone tells you
different then know for sure they may be a good programmer but they're quite
lacking in binary math skills, even if they don't think so. The proof is in my
working code. The main code for three dimensions is only a screen or two in
assembly, which means it's about as tight as it could possibly get.
Since the board design will be out the instant I sell one, I may just put it
out anyway. Like the machine itself it's boiled down without the crap other
people swear you have to have because they don't understand how to make it work
without unnecessary parts. Gates blow if you don't really understand what
you're doing driving a motor with high side N channel MOSFETs, look on the net
at how many designs have crazy amounts of gate protection diodes that aren't
necessary at all if you under stand it correctly, and drive it right and don't
make it fail.
Plus it's flexible and intelligent, you just give it the endpoints and tell
it to go, not some crazy twiddling every line or telling it every point along
the way, and with controller based timing. Of course that can be put in too, so
you can use other CAM programs that are out there for the interface. All the
higher math is done on the PC side in my code, so it's easy to adjust how the
user interface works. It works the way I'd want it to work. Only needs a
little more user interfacing code and a few extras, I just left it at basic
input statements since I knew exactly what I was making it do.
Alan