[Noisebridge-discuss] getting that goddamned mill to work

Jesse Welz welzart at yahoo.com
Tue Sep 29 00:57:06 UTC 2009


Hi,
I have never posted to this list before and a discussion of interest to me popped
so I thought I'd post one. It is really coincidental that I was just going through
the process of researching what is needed to get that mill going. I consider myself 
more of machinery hacker than computer hacker [although I am working on remedying that]
and when I saw that others are looking to get that mill going too this will be perfect.

Johnathon Moore was showing me around Noisebridge for the first time and I noticed 
the little mill and lathe right away as something I would love to mess around with even 
though the machines I used to run as a machinist where way bigger and scarier. Johnathon 
told me that a few people had messed with it to no avail and since moving into the new
space and seeing it there, while also now understanding the theory of DoAcracy present at 
noisebridge I thought I would start doing something. I was doing some research and wanted 
to put together a team or group or guild to work on things machinist related at noisebridge. 

> Waitaminit, I thought we was leet hakerz! Looking at the linuxcnc
> setup, it's pretty straightforward to interface with a parallel port
> if we can find the stepper and encoder signals.
>
> http://www.distinctperspectives.com/emc2installsetup/page4.html
>
> I've done that before on another project and it went pretty well:
> 
> http://www.flickr.com/photos/headrotor/3549404637/in/photostream/
> 
> If I have permission to poke at the mill controller boards I can take
> a look tonight.
>
> Someone want to find a PC with a serial port and install the linuxcnc
> ubuntu image?

I think that running EMC2 [the linuxcnc milling software] would be totally feasible. This
is already being done by some including this guy. Like Jonathon Foote points out I think it 
really is just configuring it correctly with a the parallel port pins on the mill. If this is still 
not working there is also another less preferable option of running an app called Mach3 which
through some forum surfing I have seen some other peeps running this software on our exact mill
and I believe there is even pre-configured modes for certain kinds of mills which include the 
Maxnc - 10. The issue with this software is it runs on windows and I have seen the general 
feelings about windows around noisebridge and think that an open source Linux based software
would be more conducive to noisebridge's mission.

There is a box next to the mill, I did not check for a parallel port but could this 
machine be used? It seems that there is general interest and more than just me thinking about this 
mill. 

I noticed that during the move the enclosure around the controls for the small lathe got
smashed and now the crux of the meager noisebridge machine shop machines are out of commission. I would 
like to re-build that enclosure out of aluminum so we can get that machine back up. Does anyone have 
any objection to me doing this? I am a skilled fabricator and will do fine job of it. 

I am also very interested in starting a noisebridge machinist guild which I think would be very useful 
at noisebridge. How many times have you been working on a project and needed a small plastic or metal 
part that just doesn't exist. Wouldn't it be cool to have prototyping abilities for this kind of shit.
I used to do that kind of work and would be thrilled to start doing it again but for fun this time. Plus,
I have some of my own uses for small custom parts anyway. Does anyone else have machine shop experience 
and want to get involved or has no experienced but is very interested in the process of building stuff 
out of metal or plastic?

Jesse

On Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 2:26 PM, Ani Niow <v at oneletterwonder.com> wrote:

> In the shop we have a small blue CNC only mill that would be wonderful for
> making custom circuit boards and machining small metal parts. No one has
> been able to figure out how to run it however. A group of us tried getting
> LinuxCNC (http://linuxcnc.org/) to connect to it but the trouble is it
> doesn't support the controller used in the mill. Wish we had figured that
> out earlier before spending so much time on it. The only other option was
> using a DOS based program that came on floppy disks. After hours of trying
> to get FreeDOS to even install, people gave up.
> Been doing some research on it and it seems that the official DOS software
> has been replaced by a much improved Windows version with some neat
> features. It's not free though and is not cheap either at $242 (
> http://www.shop.maxnc.com/product.sc?productId=23&categoryId=8).
>
> As I see it there's three options on getting this running.
>
>
>    - Fuck with the DOS version enough (which likely is hard to use with a
>    horrid UI, not to mention it's fucking DOS) to get it working
>    - Write a driver to support the controller inside the mill or replace
>    the controller to make LinuxCNC work
>    - Suck it up and buy the Windows software
>
> Given it's a $2,500 machine that was donated to us, $242 seems like small
> change. I'm sure people have religious reasons for not running Windows and
> by all means don't use the mill because of it or write a Linux driver for
> it. Until that happens I would absolutely love to figure out how to use a
> CNC mill.
>
> I'm willing to gather pledges and get the software, alternatively if anyone
> knows where we can get it for free (maybe someone else with the same
> machine) then please go for it. Do-ocracy and all.
>
> Until then, I'm pledging $20 to The Software For the Mill Fund.
>
>
> -Ani
>
>
>
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> Noisebridge-discuss at lists.noisebridge.net
> https://www.noisebridge.net/mailman/listinfo/noisebridge-discuss
>
>






      
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