My name is Dan Heeks. I am interested in CNC milling and software development, so I am making an open source CAD/CAM application. Also, I have recently bought a Sieg KX1 CNC milling machine from www.arceurotrade.co.uk. It was less than £2000, when I bought it.
My father is a precision engineer. He has a Bridgeport Series1 CNC milling machine, so he helped me dismantle, clean, oil and re-assemble all the sliding parts of the machine. The software that comes with the machine is called Mach3. It seems to work quite nicely. It is free, if you only want to do 500 lines of NC code, but I paid $159 to unlock it, when I made a NC file with 1000 lines.
I am writing a free CAD/CAM application for Windows using wxWidgets and OpenCASCADE. It can compile with free tools ( Visual Studio 2008 Express ). It is mostly done in C++. I have made the source code freely available. The basic CAD application source code is at http://code.google.com/p/heekscad/ and the milling CNC add-on is at http://code.google.com/p/heekscnc/
But, it's not finished and it's full of bugs, so I wouldn't bother compiling it yourself yet. Feel free to copy any of my code.
Here is a screenshot of HeeksCNC:
To use it; I draw some geometry ( lines, arcs, infinite lines, circles ). Then I enter a program:spindle(5000.000000)
rate(50.000000, 50.000000)
tool(1, 3.000000, 0.000000)
rapidxy(-6.000000, 4.000000)
rapidz(5.000000)
feedz(-1.500000)
profile(16, "left", -6.000000, 7.000000)
I press the "Run" button and it shows me the tool path.
Then I press "Post Process" button and it makes the NC code.
This is controlled by a script language written in Python.
4 comments:
Dan, how do you like the SX1? I currently have a CNC SHerline mill and thinking of replacing it with the KX1
David
http://www.scalereplica.com
David, I am pleased with it. It was very good value for money. It is rigid and is happy cutting metal, but I have only tried aluminium so far. My father is a precision engineer and he is fairly impressed with it, especially considering it's low cost.
Dan
Dan
I like what you are doing, and would like to help in someway.
I will be receiving a brand new minitech cnc(it is paid ofr and on a truck as we speak), with mach 3 controller. There is a dual boot xp/linux box. dedicated to CNC work.
plenty of machining expereince(thats how I pay my mortgage) and going into the third year of mechanical engineering at www.mst.edu.
curently reading and getting into python(that can be changed to better suit the project)
My idea was to focus the last two years on machine and motion control with CNC as the medium.
If you have any needs, want to kick around ideas, need a test bed or even point me in the direction that would help your project out the most etc....
please email me: roger@infraotica.com or raez99@mst.edu
Roger,
I have recently made an installation of HeeksCNC for Windows available here http://code.google.com/p/heekscnc/downloads/list, or you could build it http://code.google.com/p/heekscad/wiki/CompilingForWindows
For Linux, you will need to follow these instructions to build HeeksCAD,
http://code.google.com/p/heekscad/wiki/CompilingForUbuntu, and if you want to make machining operations you will need to build HeeksCNC and various other projects too.
I have more experience in Windows than Linux, so I have no idea how to make an installation for Ubuntu.
If you can build it, there are lots of existing jobs to do
http://code.google.com/p/heekscad/issues/list
http://code.google.com/p/heekscnc/issues/list
To discuss about how to help, go to http://groups.google.com/group/heekscad-users
or http://groups.google.com/group/heekscad-devel
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