Re: 5-axis machine controller

[Matt Shaver <mshaver-at-erols.com>]

JohnDRoc-at-aol.com wrote:
> 
> I think you need to preface your question with your definition of production.  I believe I was the first non-NIST person to try a conversion on an industrial-strength machine.  The machine was in a tool-making shop with 9 or 10 toolmakers (I use that term loosely).  It you do the conversion yourself and run it yourself, it will do fine.  There wasn't a knothead in the shop who could have run it though, their answer to uh-oh's is to shut the machine off and turn it back on and Linux doesn't tolerate that for very long.  Likewise, what little they knew about computers was related to microsnot and windoze, so they were totally lost when I tried to show them how to create, save and open a g-code file.  I'm not saying EMC is bad, (after alot of trial, error and help from JonE et al) I had that old dinasaur humpin' to the tune of 400+ ipm.  However, I didn't trust anyone with it and, to the dismay of the shop owner, I aborted my efforts with an "ummm, I dunno, I can't make it wo!
rk!
> ."!
>   Although, if it was my machine
> , I would hook it back up in a heartbeat.  Back to the original question - what do you consider production?

There are ways to get around some of these problems, such as making a
bootable CD to run Linux and the EMC from (this is not something that
HAS been done, just something that COULD be done). I'll have to agree
though, that the EMC is not "CNC for Dummies" (and that seems to be what
a lot of shop owners want). The EMC has been run in a production
environment for several years in two shops that I built and sold EMC
controlled machines. In both cases, operator training was a major part
of the job, although I think that's going to be an issue with any
control, not just the EMC. As to reliability, the EMC is comparable to
any other control. The problems you will have will be hardware problems
that occur with any any CNC machine. One other issue is that the EMC is
geared more towards users who program offline as it doesn't have any
substantial conversational capabilities. Efforts are underway to add
these capabilities, but that may be 6 months to a year away.

Matt