I hope this is the right forum to post in =) If not, I can always move the post.
I am a programmer with a company that produces semi-rigid circular cable parts. We currently employ the use of 5 CNC benders that use XYZ tables to bend the cable into the shapes we need for our customers designs. Some examples of what we build can be found on
http://www.rosenbergerna.com We use cable that ranges in size from 0.070 to 5 inches thick, some are solid copper / aluminium, some are more flexible.
The benders that we currently use are MS-DOS-based, using Parker AT6400 controller cards. Two of the benders are older than that, and contain a huge controller device hooked up via serial port that uses Parker / DigiPlan controllers and relays. Some pics of this ancient beast can be seen at
http://www.f1-software.com/gallery/t...s.php?album=17
One of the projects that I am working on here is to work on some new software to bring these machines up to a more modern perspective. I have purchased the ACR1505 controller card from PArker along with the SDK's etc. and will be developing a new bending tool in c++ to work with these, plus additional machines.
Problem I am running into is with the mathematics regarding the cable bending process. When a design is submitted to us, a customer typically sends us an X, Y,Z table, which is used to compute the cable in 3d. All points except the first 2 are virtual, meaning they may expand out until they meet, then the arc of the bend sits on either side of the intersection. What I am looking for is links or reference material to how to manually compute this information so I can teach my program how to correctly compute the segment lengths etc. from this data. Any help at all would be appreciated as I have been trying to find it for quite some time.
If you require any more information, please let me know and I will be glad to provide it.
Thanks
Andy Kellett