VirtualMill V3 Cam program Free!

[steveg]

for all you cadcam people out there that don't have access
to licensed and expensive cam software you might want to
look here:http://www.mecsoft.com/
I've downloaded and played with it a bit but haven't done
anything serious with it yet,(way too busy house building)

there are a few downsides (isn't there always) first,
it only accepts .stl files, not a big deal as almost every thing outputs .stl
second it's time limited, the present version runs out end of march,
then you have to download and reinstall it again.

It is however free!!

perhaps a few if the PRO cam users (that is not me, my specialty is the care and feeding of the cnc machines themselves)
can try it and give the rest of us an UNBAISED review of what it can do

Another free program prodesktop express http://www.ptc.com/
outputs .stl

[Pand0ra]

Thanks for the link. Looks like you've solved one of my problems :).
Last thing left: the CNC mill, humm

@++

[steveg]

Pan there is a huge hobby cnc market out here with low
cost hardware that gets better and better every day
I'll list some of my favorite links if your interested

[Pand0ra]

Originally posted by steveg
Pan there is a huge hobby cnc market out here with low
cost hardware that gets better and better every day
I'll list some of my favorite links if your interested

Yes I am :).
In fact I'm in the first stage of building my own CNC mill.
Right no the CAD and CAM parts are decided, and I know the CNC controler will based on EMC.
The big thing I need to find now is a good spindle, and then decide which design I'll use for the machine.

Of course I could use an existing machine, and put motors on it, but that would remove a part of the fun .

@++

[steveg]

So far it look's like just you and me Pan

You know about EMC so you most likely know www.linuxcnc.org
what version are you using?

For windowsXP/NT Mach1 looks to have great potential www.artofcnc.ca it's based on EMC as well

For dos there is turbocnc my favorite at the moment
www.dakeng.com of course we must'nt forget www.drdos.org
to go with

of course from these sites there are ton's of links to other hobby sites

At the moment I'm taking the easy way out with a sherline
cnc ready milling machine www.sherline.com with pacific scientific
steppers www.pacsci.com and gecko stepper drives www.geckodrive.com
(so far the best hobby/semi pro drives available)

another site I like is www.mini-lathe.comlot's of interesting ideas,links etc

www.littlemachineshop.com has all kinds of parts for the
mini lathes and mills. of possible interest to you might
be this:http://www.littlemachineshop.com/pro...ProductID=1625
an R8 spindle! R8 as i'm sure you know is the most universally available tool holder there is.

[Pand0ra]

I'm using the EMC BDI 2.16, if I remember well. Right now it's enough for what I do (basically study the way the program is designed, and look at the source code).
Once everything is ready I'll use the latest BDI, and install all the new files coming directly from the repository of sourceforge.net

@++

[lopxtc]

Actually count me into this also ... I am trying to layout my slug body at the moment, and I you all have cought my eye.

Aaron

[ShooterJM]

I'm in. I've been trying to collect information on building a cnc upgradable mill as well.

[steveg]

Hi Shooter and lopxtc !

Pan it's only taken me a couple of days to notice you
are from Belgium:o so probably a few of the sites I
gave you are not really practical sources for hardware.

What sort of hardware is commonly available to you there,
and what sort of machine are you building?

If I ever remember to bring my digital camera home I'll
post a picture of my machine so far.

[ShooterJM]

That'd be cool. For now I'm thinking of just buying some endmills and making do.

[Pand0ra]

Originally posted by steveg
Hi Shooter and lopxtc !

Pan it's only taken me a couple of days to notice you
are from Belgium:o so probably a few of the sites I
gave you are not really practical sources for hardware.

What sort of hardware is commonly available to you there,
and what sort of machine are you building?

If I ever remember to bring my digital camera home I'll
post a picture of my machine so far.

In Belgium this market is far less developped than in your country (I wonder if there's a market in fact lol), but hoppefully, there's a lot of machines available in England.
So it's not really a problem to find the parts, it's just quite expensive.

For the design of the machine I've two choices. In both cases, I'll probably use a spindle in the range of 5Kw.

The first one is close to a horizontal machining center. The only problem with this design is the column, as I should hollow it for the motor. The good point is the simplicity of the design (well, I mean not too complex )

Second solution, a bit crazy: Build a parallel kinetic mill. In this case the weight of the moving parts will be a lot lower than for the first design, which means the spindle can move faster. I also need less accurate parts than for the first design, as all the errors are software corrected by the CNC controller.
The big problem here comes from the bearings, which are very specific and hard to find (I don't even want to know the price of one).

I'll post a few pics of the different designs later.

@++

[nuclear zombie]

Once i get my slug body designed in 3D I will need someone with a CNC mill to make it for me . Just curious if anyone here could do it ?

[steveg]

nuclear It will be close to spring before I can even think
of doing even my own stuff. the sherline at the moment is a box
of parts in my spare bedroom. all my time is involved in doing this

[steveg]

Gee Pan don't start small or anything 5kw and parallel
kinetic.
I don't know if this would help but try this link
www.cnckits.com most of the way down the page "hexapod"

for anyone thinking what the heck is parallel kinetic
try here http://erc.engin.umich.edu/me584/ME584_Lecture_5_2.pdf

for hexapod try here http://www.parallemic.org/WhosWho/CompPKM.html

for the horizonal style have you considered a boring mill
type column where the spindle head rides on the side of the
column instead of inside? much simpler and not inherently
weaker.

[Pand0ra]

Yeah I'm sometimes a bit crazy .

Thanks for the links. I found interesting things, and some I missed last time I visited the site.

Here's a pic where you can see an animation of a PKM (a bit big, sorry).

In this case it's a hexaglide, which is a 5 axis mill. The drawback of this design is it needs 6 motors (in general linear motors) to get the 5 axis.