[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > i/ I guess this is going to come down to a philosophical choice, do you > pursue the DRO first, or the EMC + NC first? vi vs emacs anyone? If you are going to the trouble and expense of embarking on one of these paths, then the CNC path is the most reward for your efforts. You need some kind of encoder either way, and you need some kind of box (DRO or PC). With a DRO, you can position precisely. That is IT. You can't MOVE any more precisely than your hands can turn the handles. You can't cut angles and arcs by hand. Using a rotary table to do angles and arcs has so many limitations, I don't want to waste bandwidth on it. The first time you design a part with free-flowing angles and arcs, and watch the machine cut it as easily as a straight line parallel to the ways, you will be kicking yourself and saying "I should have done this YEARS ago!" I know, I was there about a decade ago. I retrofitted two axes on my Bridgeport, and immediately designed a piece for the Z-axis retrofit with all sorts of stuff I never would have attempted with a rotary table. It took minutes to cut, instead of a WHOLE DAY fooling around with a RT.
Heh heh, yes, I'm an emacs guy, but I only know how to use 5% of emacs. But, that 5% is a great boon. Jon ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This SF.net email is sponsored by: Microsoft Defy all challenges. Microsoft(R) Visual Studio 2008. http://clk.atdmt.com/MRT/go/vse0120000070mrt/direct/01/ _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users