Mark Wrathall wrote:

Hi Paul, check out Meshcam (http://www.robgrz.com/meshcam.phtml) currently
in beta, thus free ware. It reads .STL files and generates a three axis tool
path. Very easy to use. Only generates G01's (no extrapolated curves, canned
cycles or other goodies) but an excellent solution to get started on
machining complete surfaces.

On a difference track is CNC toolkit
(http://www.rainnea.com/cnc_toolkit.htm) Also a free beta, this is a
software for generating 5 axis machine code. Again, only G01's, but when you
consider the $$ commercial vendors charge for 4+ axis CAM, this is amazing.
He does it with an 87Kb plugin which takes advantage of a feature in a 3D
modeling software designed for creating monsters in computor games (3D MAX,
or its freeware version Gmax). It can generate complex splines, and then
generate a perpendicular spline at each node. These are used to create the
five axis tool path. The Gmax has a rather steep learning curve, as it is
not an engineering software :)

The authors of both these software have proven very responsive to their beta
communities through the respective yahoo groups.

On another note, I am writing an article on intake manifolds for wankel.org.
Could you please resend your pictures of the failed attempts to cut down the
mazda lower manifold.

Mark Wrathall
www.wankel.org

Thanks Mark. I'll check it out. 

BTW I just got a brochure from a company that looks like
it is the hot tip for upgrading the motion controller.
http://www.ms-tech.com

Sure! Here they are.

Paul Lamar
 
The AirCraft Rotary Engine NewsLetter.  Powered by Linux.
ACRE NL web site. http://home.earthlink.net/~rotaryeng/            
Copyright 1998-2003 All world wide rights reserved.