Re: gEDA-user: Universal Turin^H^H^H^H^Hmilling machine

[Syed Faisal Akber <faisal@akber.net>]

My brother is in the process of building such a machine.  He went out and
bought a milling lathe, a Galil CNC controller, motors, and I'm not sure
what else.  He will be putting all of the hardware together.

I will help him with the software on Linux.  There seems to be CNC
software called Linux CNC at http://www.cnclinux.org/ (i think).  He said
that at his workplace they use a milling CNC to build one-off PCB's.  This
eliminates the need for chemicals etc...  However, I haven't found any
opensource Gerber to G-code (CNC language) converters.  Actually I haven't
found anything at all, but I haven't looked hard enough.

I haven't had time to look into either language to gauge how difficult it
would be to write the converter myself.

Until my brother sets up the hardware, I won't look at the software until
then.  However, I like your idea of the milling machine.

73,
Faisal

On Sat, 6 Nov 2004, Karel Kulhavy wrote:

> Does anyone have notion how difficult it woule be to make a universal milling
> machine that would be capable of producing other mechanics machines at home,
> e. g. PCB drills, ordinary drill, lathes, optical grating generators, cogwheel
> machines, mills etc.?
>
> So that one could design independently of these machines.
>
> Just some ordinary user would download Ronja and then type
> user@machine$ make depend
> detecting available hardware...
> drill detected
> lathe detected
> The following hardware is necessary to be build:
> * PCB drill
> * etch tank
> * through-plating station
> * mill
> Estimated building time: 1.5 day(s)
> user@machine$ make
> [...]
>
> Of course, when the user would be building another PCB, the machnies would be
> reused.
>
> It's also feasible that an intermediate step would be going to the basement
> with a plan in hand and assembling the generated heap of parts into the actual
> machine, unless we had an universal assembler machine, which would save us the
> work.
>
> Actually, I don't know why do we need the unpleasant commercial products at
> all?  One could spend few bucks for aluminium and steel rods and handful of
> chemistry, but the rest is technology, and technology is know-how, and know-how
> is information, and information wants to be free.
>
> At least, Ronja DIY manufacture would be relieved this way enormously :)
>
> I see the difference on Ronja clearly. Without an exact guide, making the
> mechanics is a nightmare. With the exact guide, you almost can watch television
> during doing it :) The key in manufacturing mechanics is not the matter, but
> the ghost.
>
> If the manufacturers exported their partlists, store statuses and prices in
> e. g. SQL, one could even write a portable interface that would automatically
> optimize an order from different suppliers and place the order.
>
> I guess the mass-production lines with all the slaves are nice, but this
> system would be much more flexible for the user.
>
> Right now I am finishing a water cooling system, which is 100% mechanics, and
> again: matter costs NTN (next to nothing), development time cost is enormous.
> It's something like 1% material and 99% know-how :)
>
> The consumer frenzy prepared tons of things that are usable for unlimited
> possibilities of construction, but actually used in very limitted number
> of ways dictated by marketing departments.
>
> Cl<
>