[Noisebridge-discuss] CNC Shop Class

[Michael Wright]

I'd like the simulator on a separate machine at NB, and for lots of  
people to be able to simulate running parts on their own machines.   
There's limited value to having the simulator on the Mill Computer  
because one could just leave the Mill power off and effectively have a  
simulator, or "Home" the Z axis up in the air and watch the mill  
actually run.

At this point the Mill and Mill Control Computer are effectively a  
single resource.  If folks can prep their g-code files on a separate  
machine, that will greatly increase the number of people who can make  
parts on the mill.  This would also hopefully make it more social (I  
can be making g-code while Jon's cutting parts, or vice-versa).

Having good simulator setup instructions would make it much easier for  
anyone running Linux to have their g-code sorted before arriving.   
That's how I'm hoping to do it using VM-Ware on MacOS.

mike

On Oct 12, 2009, at 1:14 PM, Seth David Schoen wrote:

> Jonathan Foote writes:
>
>>> OK, it definitely simulated milling something!  How would I get it  
>>> to
>>> simulate our machine in particular?
>>
>> That's great, thanks Seth, I will wikitize your steps.
>>
>> There's actually nothing machine-specific that you need at this  
>> point:
>> your UI will look pretty much exactly what we have now.
>>
>> We will likely get to tool configuration  and accurate X,Y,Z hard
>> limits but for now you are good to go!
>>
>> For a sanity check, try simulating a run of the NB logo gcode from
>> here: https://www.noisebridge.net/wiki/Identity
>
> That also ran perfectly in the simulator.  If you want, I can make a
> typescript of the exact commands I typed to compile the simulator  
> (but I
> think the emc2 package is actually comparatively very well-behaved and
> easy to compile compared to plenty of software out there).
>
> This raises the question of what people working with this machine  
> expect
> the right, best, or typical workflow to be.  Do you mainly want
>
> * the simulator working on the same machine in the shop that's used to
>  control the mill?
>
> * the simulator working on a separate dedicated machine at Noisebridge
>  that people can use to simulate their projects before uploading  
> them to
>  that machine?
>
> * the simulator working on lots of individuals' own computers?
>
> Is getting this simulation working mainly a one-time thing or  
> something
> that many prospective users will want to replicate over and over  
> again?
>
> -- 
> Seth David Schoen <schoen at loyalty.org> | Qué empresa fácil no pensar  
> en
>     http://www.loyalty.org/~schoen/   | un tigre, reflexioné.
>     http://vitanuova.loyalty.org/     |            -- Borges, El Zahir
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