"Kevin R. Walsh" wrote:

Paul-

There's been a bit of discussion recently about CAD packages, and

you

had talked previously about CNC mills.  I was wondering what you

used

as your CAD/CAM transdlation package.  I'm installing a Bridgeport
Series 1 CNC mill into my garage this week, and I am going to do a
controls retrofit.  I've got SolidWorks, AutoCAD, and Pro/E at my
disposal, so I'm looking for a translator that can take files form

all

three.  Any ideas?

Thanks
Kevin

I use Master CAM. BTW IMHO the hot tip for retrofit right at the
moment is
Compumotor. This is not a parallel port toy. This is a complete 32
bit
computer
on a plug in PCI card with a real time operating system for smooth
3D high speed contouring. I don't know the price yet for hardware
and software but I am working on it. I'll also be getting a demo in
the near future.

http://www.compumotor.com/

Paul-

Keep me posted on what you find out about the Compumotor.  The card and
software look really nice (and expensive!)  I was considering the Galil
DMC-18x2/Camsoft combination, or possibly Aerotech.  Seems like
everyone used MasterCAM as the translator.

Thanks
Kevin

I have yet to get a price for the Compumotor. What price did you get?

Paul Lamar

I just got a call from Axium which is the Windows version of the
software
for the Parker PCI card. Looks like about $2700 which is competitive
to
CamSoft for the less powerful Galil card. I still need a price for the
DOS
version which I prefer.

Paul Lamar

I just got another call from CamSoft. They admitted they don't use any
of the onboard intelligence of any of the high price motion boards
they sell
such as the 68331 Galil. They do all the math processing on the
PC under preemptive non real time Windows. They use the motion boards
as $1.00 
PIC microcomputer replacements. A $1.00 PIC can send out +/- 10 volts
to the 
servo motors and count encoder pulses. In effect this is no different
than the toy parallel port systems.

I would not be a bit surprised if they ported all the free CNC  C
source
code from the RT Linux project to Windows.


Paul Lamar
 
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