Hi:
I thought Id better mention this in a letter with the proper heading, I mentioned it in a responce to
another user the other day. I now have the new G100 firmware, it looks very good, but is a very large rewrite in several ways.
You will be seeing reference to it on the various groups, so just to keep the G100 owners informed....
I have begun the rewrite, (I can jog and do IO now.
), and work continues. Many things have changed in the way the G100
operates, and in its protocol. Steve has completely rewritten the messaging classes, and most of the logic classes, so this will
take awhile, on the bright side, he will be an expert at helping me with what I run into. So it may not take as long as I originally thought.
The more I play in there, the more Im understanding the interface. I hope to have some preliminary plugins within a few short weeks,
perhaps sooner. Expect trouble, but expect that trouble to be solvable now. The Spindle can now be a separate axis on its own,
with no tie to the GCode axis, so that will fix the requirement for a spindle frequency. Ill keep you posted on periodic progress,
I know many of you want test versions as we go, so Ill release as I can and when I feel we hit particular milestones in the rewrite.
The old plugin didnt avail itself of many things the newer plugins can do, so Ill make this a complete upgrade , basically a new plugin,
there wont be much left from the old one, so it will take a while to complete. Im in the middle of 3 projects I feel I cant drop, so
Ill be parallel developing , while I wait on one thing, Ill work on another..
Lazycam has been undergoing a rather drastic upgrade as well, and will be a month or so till Im ready to release it I think, I may get
all the features in prior to initial relase, I may not. Pocketing (as in the new video) and Offsetting (Kerfing) and Hot Wire -2d, are done, but we want to get
isolation profiling and turning done before release. The LazyCam-Pro release will require a license. Its projected at $75.00 for a Pro license
for LCam, due to royalty and license agreements I have signed, but I do have the flexability to release early if I cant get isolation done
in time, and lower the price to $50.00 for those that dont mind being the testers of the initial modules. Or I may opt to allow a 2-3 month
pricing of $50.00 with the realisation that there will be lots of bugs to find in the initial couple of months, so the initial users deserve a break on it.
These turning and pocketing modules are very high capability modules and will be very popular for the "Cam challenged". LazyCam will stay
free of course as it stands now with just import capabilities. Ive tried to keep the costs down, but I think 75.00 for the functionallity it will offer
is a very good deal all things considered , we'll see how you feel when you get a chance to play with it.
The ncPod is till undergoing some final adjustments in its firmware as well, its taking longer than I hoped (doesnt all firmware..), but
seems to be working fairly well at most sites, a jog bug has been discovered in a few test sites, but other than that it appears to be working
well, the neww firmware for it will give ramped homing routines, fix the jog bug, and then probing can be completed. That will just about do
it for the ncPod.
Latest Galil plugin seems to be working well by reports, and is in full release.
The Delta-Tau plugin has been started, but is delayed as well due to some technical issues, we're working on that as the lower priority
as its not a general user item..
The Chinese version of Mach3 is getting closer to completion, a side project I had to get going, the chinese seem to be going crazy
for Mach3 this year, so its another unexpected job that cropped up..
Mach3's lockdown has started to truly lock down. A couple small bugs still exist, Im searching and watching for those, but bug reports
on Mach3 have dropped over 80% over the past 3 months, so the lockdown is almost complete. When that happens, and the above three
projects are ready to go, then Quantum work will restart , and things will start to tie together..
Well, thats it, I hope it answers some of your questions about whats going on, and whats coming out..and approximately when.. As someone mentioned
this week, the loosest schedule in the world are software schedules, you just never know what youll hit, but all the above look to be on a good track now,
so Im hopefull for th enear future on all of them.
Thanks,
Art
www.artofcnc.ca
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