Machsupport Forum
Mach Discussion => Mach4 General Discussion => Topic started by: Screwie Louie on June 06, 2015, 02:10:32 AM
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Talk amongs't yourselfs...(that's my best Dana Carvey impression from Saturday Night Live)
I'm just the apprentice, but wow...the information in these threads is freakin great! Where has YaNvrNo been? Is he ok? I picked up a book on Fanuc macros to help me better understand gCode macros and such to integrate them with Lua; or vice versa. I'm talking from a teacher standpoint of course. Poppabear, Brett, Terry, Brian, and the like. Hat's off to y'all.
Here's a conversation piece for y'all...
Is Lua to be integrated with Fanuc or vice versa?
peanut gallery comment: The ability to integrate both for automation and in a user defined gui environment has awesome potential. Top it off with today's microcontrollers; we will be controlling mills that make mills...that make tools accurately, reliably, and efficiently. Weapon system acquisition! Let's give Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, and Boeing some competition! ...hey, I can dream a little...
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ooohhh....can we ask Mach 4 to be bidirectional? as in having...both subtractive AND additive manufacturing capabilities? Yah, I'll throw that in the features request thread. lol!
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YaNvrNo is still around
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ooohhh....can we ask Mach 4 to be bidirectional? as in having...both subtractive AND additive manufacturing capabilities? Yah, I'll throw that in the features request thread. lol!
Mach4 (and any other control) just does what you (and the G code) tell it to do.
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Haven't got into the 3D printing realm yet so I wasn't sure what it entails as in just hit "print"... by the nature of my job, I know that additive manufacturing is a hot topic (ie for shipbuilding and repair) as I just heard the words out of Frank Kendall's mouth (USD AT&L, look him up). Specifically, metals not plastics. There is a program out west that is in R&D. I believe some experimentation has had success using very very soft metals. I heard of a term called "contour crafting". (automated placement of a hose that dispenses concrete for construction purposes)...I was just trying blend Mach4 into the ability to incorporate into such projects. Yep, you are right. Just use Gcode and Mach4 is good at that :)
key words: R&D, prototyping, DARPA, program management, small business administration, "other transaction authority", federal acquisition regulation, gov contracting, FedBizOPPS -just trying to setup my future and thanx to Mach4 and everyone here, I may of just found it.
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We already did this with Mach4!!
ooohhh....can we ask Mach 4 to be bidirectional? as in having...both subtractive AND additive manufacturing capabilities? Yah, I'll throw that in the features request thread. lol!
This is a link with some machine photos.
http://www.optomec.com/whats-next-in-additive-manufacturing/
Andrew with MachMotion
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Nice Work!
Scott
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Exactly! Thanx Andrew for showing the snippet of the technical demonstration. Do you somehow use thermite to adhere the powder steel mixture or just direct heat from the laser? just curious...I want to to come work for guys! I'd definitely get out of bed at 5 am for that, lol ;D
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Andrew...Lawrence Livermore National Labs was where testing is being done. The lab itself has a $1.5b operating budget. Don't know how much is in the additive manuf. product development program tho.
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Screwie,
We did all the software on the Mach4 side and we did the retrofit for those machines, but the hardware and laser for the deposition came from Optomec. You can read more about it at: http://www.optomec.com/whats-next-in-additive-manufacturing/
If your interested in working with us on a Mach4 CNC control for deposition give us a call!
Thanks,
Andrew with MachMotion