I've started writing some open-source foam cutting software.

http://www.homecnc.org/index.php/FCut

The frontend is fairly complete. The features are fairly minimal as yet. Consider it early alpha. :)

The backend is currently just a script file that can be run in GMFC as I'm yet to write the parallel port driver.

Anyone wanting to help with development (particularly on an interrupt driven parallel port driver!) is most welcome. :)


http://www.homecnc.org/images/2/2d/2006-09-08_183012.png

Ok, I'm feeling pretty impressed with myself at the moment. I managed to write the kernel mode driver and the user mode interface and get it debugged all in one day. :)

Trying to use C# to talk to a kernel mode driver turns out to be quite a pain the in butt, but google was my friend and it turned out ok.

The program is currently sitting on the bench telling me that the MM2001 style board I have is generating interrupts at 4050.2Hz. I'm a little suspicious of the number of significant figures there, but it's a very very good start.

The next step, being actually moving the steppers, is a pretty simple task from here.

It moves!

The software is now complete enough to drive the steppers on my Xylotex board (unfortunately the actual pinout is currently hardcoded in in Machine.cs). After loading the airfoils in the wing page, I managed to successfully 'cut' a wing core (or at least, move the wire in a way that would have cut it).

There's still a long way to go. I need to write the form to handle setting up the actual pinout, I need to fix a problem with the scale (it's moving too far at the moment), I need to actually set the heat rather than just pretending etc etc!

On the whole, I'm very satisified. I think I'm definately past the crest of the hill now, the end is in sight!

(Ps: New release of software off the project page: Linked from http://fcut.sf.net)

More progress. I've written the heat control code, but it's not fully hooked up yet.

I've also written the dialog to change the pinouts for the parallel port.

A fair number of bugs were also fixed. This one will actually cut something that looks like a core under manual heat control. :)

(It's not actually a real core because the geometry isn't quite right yet).

Nice work :-)

Spoke too soon. The geometry is done. It's now fully capable of cutting an actual core! (Under manual heat control).

While I was on a roll, I wrote the point interpolation for the .dat files.

Which brings up a point: With two different .dat files, what points should be matched up? i.e. when one end of the wire is at point X in the left file, what would the corresponding point in the right file be?

At the moment, I'm measuring the total length of the polyline that the .dat file describes, and then matching up x% along that line with each .dat file (if that makes any sense).

Is that the best way? or should something else be used for alignment.

Just released the latest version. There's a number of improvements, the biggest of which is that the heat control is now fully syncronized with the wire motion.

This involved changing the kernel driver, so you'll need to uninstall the old driver for the new release to work (Can be done from the Test menu, under 'Uninstall driver').

There's a number of smaller graphical improvements as well, and even a start of some documentation at http://www.homecnc.org/index.php/FCut_Documentation

A screen shot from the (sparse) docs:

http://www.homecnc.org/images/2/23/2006-09-19_160116.png

Not bad. Ill get back into my foam cutting cnc after I fix all the bugs in my new Home built CNC router
Great work
Steve

It turns out the MM2001 driver conflicts with the FCut driver for some unknown reason.

The MM2001 driver needs to be disabled (via the device manager) before FCut is started, else your computer will crash hard when FCut exits.

Still trying to work out exactly why this is the case.

Version 1.0.8 released.

1. Now does spline interpolation (rather than linear
interpolation). This makes the wire motion much smoother
and reduces sharp accelerations in the wire.

2. The kerf calculation around tight bends is more accurate.
We iterate to find a solution that matches the perdicted
kerf values.

3. The issue that caused the computer to crash if the
MM2001 driver was installed was found and a workaround
written. The program still don't work if the MM2001 driver
is active, but it won't crash the computer either. It will also
warn that it's unable to access the interrupt because the
MM2001 driver has it locked.

4. A number of minor bugs fixed.

Spent the morning doing foam cutting using FCut, so there's a fair bit of polish added.

1. Finally fix the bug preventing negative values in manual move mode.
2. Fixed bug where the foam depth offset wasn't being used.
3. Fixed bug where the foam was drawn in the wrong position in the top view window.
4. Fixed bug where the foam width offset wasn't always being recalculated when the foam position changed.
5. Fix major bug where heat wasn't being set when the wire moved.
6. Fix bug where move window wasn't being automatically closed when move finished.
7. Fix bug where heat wasn't being set on manual moves, unfortunately requires a driver update.
8. Feature: Turn off heat at end of cut, sync'ed with wire motion.
9. Bug: Projecting the shape to the wire supports now works correctly, and copes with different span shapes being cut in the same core.
10. Feature: The shape is now automatically centered in the foam shape.
11. Bug: Right/Left wing box didn't instantly update drawing on changed value.
12. Bug: Wing occasionally lost track of setting slope by dihedral angle or basic height. Now remembers which one was set last.
13. Bug: Kerf values were the wrong way around
14. Bug: Kerf were at max speed and min speed, instead of max speed and max speed/2.
15. Bug: The warning message about a missing interrupt generator was occasionally falsely triggered.
16. Bug: The kerf values where treated as a radius instead of as a diameter.
17. Feature: Warn if the kernel driver is out of date.

See http://fcut.sf.net as normal

Just released version 1.0.10

Available for download at https://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=176672
as usual ( details at http://fcut.sf.net )

Most notable change is probably that it now remembers board and machine settings!

With the 'Reduce heat on sharp corners' settings, I can now automatically cut the supergee-II wingtip (a 6mm thick airfoil) without getting meltback on the leading edge. Yay!

Obligatory screen shot:
http://www.homecnc.org/images/0/04/2006-09-25_174423.png

When 'reduce heat' is turned on, FCut drawns a visible indication of the rate of curvature. The length of the spiky purple lines indicates how tight the airfoil is curving at that point..

Full list of changes:

25-Sep-2006
1. Started adding heat reduction on tight curves.
2. Feature: wire now moves at max speed when 'known' to be outside the foam.
3. Internal: Wire path calculation now separated from drawing code.
4. Internal: Now maintain the machine and foam wirepath seperately.
5. Internal: Consolidated the wirepath planning into a single location.
6. Feature: If in the foam settings, 'Reduce heat on sharp corners' is turned on, then the wire heat is reduced around sharp corners. This is a must for cutting relatively accurate leading edges on AG46 and AG47 style airfoils.
7. Feature: Only show the sharpness of curvature if 'Reduce heat' is turned on.
8. Bug: Cut dialog now shows the number of points and the time it would take as soon as it's shown.
9. Bug: Cut dialog now changes the 'Cut' button to be an 'Ok' button when the cut is finished.
10. Bug: Fixed tabbing order in manual move dialog.
11. Feature: Manual move dialog has a checkbox to turn on heat while moving.

24-Sep-2006:

1. Feature: Now remembers the location of the main window when restarted.
2. Feature: Now remembers the board pinout when restarted. Took crazy amount of time to write!
3. Testing: Now drawing 'sharpness of curvature' lines in the main box (mostly for my debugging purposes).
4. Feature: Now lets you disable the driver board. Automatically disables the driver board if it can't start the kernel driver.
5. Feature: Now remembers the machine description when restarted.
6. Bug: Now correctly bugs the axis inversion into the machine description.
7. Bug: Corrected the label on the Board tab (was saying 'Machine').
8. Internal: Moved the kernel driver handling out of MainForm into Board.
9. Internal: Wrote object serialization and deserialization handlers in Util.
10. Internal: Moved finding a line normal vector into Util.

Just uploaded version 1.0.11. The major change is that this adds loading and saving.

Note that this release is utterly untested (I'm currently 4000Km away from my foam cutting machine :)


Details:

2-Oct-2006:

1. Bug: Changing chord length now updates display and cut.
2. Bug: Spline interpolation could sometimes overrun array for some reason. Workaround installed.
3. Wrote options screen. Currently has a single setting to set the number of points to interpolate to (default is 1000).

26-Sep-2006:

1. Feature: Hooked up 'load file'. Can now save and load cut paths.
2. Bug: Set default filename extensions in load and save file dialogs.
3. Bug: Changing the foam width needed recalulate() run twice to draw correctly.
4. Bug: foam data missing when loaded from file.
5. Bug: Wings weren't being added when loaded.


25-Sep-2006 part 3:

1. Wrote code to cut seperate beds. I.e. cuts the top bed, then the core, then the bottom bed as three seperate piece of foam. This is to ensure that the beds are accurate (the beds from the core are normally a poor fit because they're a full kerf value off). Experimental.

Released 1.0.13. Only minor changes.

I've added pinouts for the Xylotex and HobbyCNC boards. Are there other boards that people have data for?


11-Oct-2006: Back from holidays!

1. Stopped debugging messagebox appearing when changing board pinout.
2. Made changing boards work correctly.
3. Added data for Xylotex and HobbyCNC boards. Anyone got any other pinouts for me to add?

1.0.14 released. Forgot to re-enable the texboxes in 1.0.13. Doh!

Managed to get pinout for HobbyCNC board reversed. See 1.0.15

Hi Moreil. What you're creating sounds amazing. I work with foam all the time. Mostly, I machine it on cnc router tables, to create all sorts of strange and unusual things for the movie industry. Check out this site, www.3dcustomfoam.com I was a consultant to John and Cam when they started this company and I trained their first employees. They use a Chroma cnc hotwire that has terrible software. It's help files arn't in english, it crashes a lot and it has no real features other than following a vector line. Have you heared of this system? I wonder, can Fcut be addapted to such a system? It has independant rheostat for heat control. I will forward you any information I can get hold of.

Thanx

15-Oct-2006:

1. Bug: FCut was aborting on .dat files that contain lines it didn't understand. Changed the behaviour to warn the user, but continue as long as we could find at least 3 data points.

Release 1.0.16

They use a Chroma cnc hotwire that has terrible software. It's help files arn't in english, it crashes a lot and it has no real features other than following a vector line. Have you heared of this system? I wonder, can Fcut be addapted to such a system? It has independant rheostat for heat control. I will forward you any information I can get hold of.


It really depends on how complex the machine is, and what sort of hardware interface it has. Chroma CNC don't appear to list a CNC foam cutter on their web site, so I couldn't find any any more information on it.

Moreil,

You have a lot of nice work here in posting what is turning out to be your journal on CNCZone, and answeriong your own questions when it is found.

Sorry you are not getting more feedback from users. I'm not a foam person but can appreciate all your work and struggling. Three years ago there was quite a bit of interest in foam aircraft construction, don't know where they are now.

Keep it up, you are documenting a lot of good information.

can the software be used without the hot wire method(hence a bit in a router??) maybe a really dumb question but he congrats i wish i could program. good luck

can the software be used without the hot wire method(hence a bit in a router??) maybe a really dumb question but he congrats i wish i could program. good luck

Not really. Driving a cutting bit it a totally different problem which requires a very different set of calculations.

Something that interprets G-code would be more suitable for driving milling machines.

WOW! GREAT WORK.

I am not really into R/C modelling but I was looking for software to drive a foam cutter to make paterns for metal casting. Where does your program get its input from can I use Autocad to produce a file that your program will then read?
I am also fairly new to CNC so please excuse me if this is a DUMB question

It takes input from .dat files. These are basically a text file with a list of (X,Y) co-ordinates to move the wire to.

I'm unsure how you can convert an autocad file to a .dat file but i do belive that it's possible.

22-Oct-2006:

1. Bug: Couldn't handle .dat files in decimal points in locales that use a decimal comma. Now tries both the local setting and en-US for parsing numbers in .dat files.
2. Bug: Floating point round errors could result in the manual-move dialog incorrectly warning about the step rate being too high. Added fudge factor.
3. Bug: The File/Open dialog would incorrectly attempt to open the file if the dialog was closed by pressing the ESC key.

Released 1.0.18

21-Oct-2006:

1. Fix bug where is the manual move dialog was closed by the cross botton, then trying to open it again caused an exception (crash).
2. Fix bug whereby an exception was raised if your tried to do a manual move that exceeded the maximum step rate.

Released 1.0.17

I just release 1.0.20.

This is a brown-paper-bag release. I was getting confused about why the About box was still broken. So I downloaded the release and released that I have been uploading the wrong .zip file for the last 5 versions. doh!

So I've effectively released 1.0.15 five times. Very sorry about that. Serious brain fade.

I just downloaded 1.0.20 and made sure that it really is 1.0.20!

So this is the first release since about 1.0.15 that actually fixes any of the bugs mentioned. Oops.

Released 1.0.21: Mostly more small polishing items.



1. Bug: wasn't correctly calculating the maximum move speed when doing geometry extension (i.e. all the time). Fixed.
2. Feature: No longer errors when trying to move too fast. Instead, just warn about it and reduce to the maximum move speed.
3. Internal: Use a proper 3-d point to handle wire endpoints. This simplifies the geometry handling.
4. Feature: In the wing/advanced tab, you can now turn off spline interpolation.
5. Bug: The 'cut seperate beds option' didn't handle washout.
6. Bug: Dihedral angle setting was broken.
7. Bug: The 'basic height' box wasn't quite working right. It's supposed to set the relative heights of the alignment points.
8. Feature: On the tip+root tabs, display the relative height of the alignment point.

Just released 1.0.22

Highlight is the excellent work by ColinH putting the GUI ship-shape. The result is better alignment of the various controls, and the tab order is now more sensible. He also basically re-wrote the manual move dialog and make it a good deal more useful.

Details:

:

1. Bug: Very slow moves happened too fast (overflowed the pause value if more than 255 interrupts in a row were skipped).
2. Internal: Found the issue with a zero trailing margin and foam offset. The start of the cut is the same point the wire moves to, causing a duplicated point. Need to find a good way to fix this.

30-Oct-2006:

1. Feature: (written by Hutchcj): Manual move dialog much improved. Prettier, has both absolute and relative positioning.
2. Feature: Hutchcj: Able to do split manual moves (i.e. move first X then Y, or vice versa).
3. Internal: Changes manualmove to use a Wirepath object instead of repeatedly calling delta_move().
4. Internal: Hooked up the pre-heat pause that Hutchcj wrote.
5. Feature: Able to set a speed of zero. This is interpreted as maximum speed.

Todo: Instant cancel, by clearing the motor queue.

Todo: Internal: In the Board object, count the number of motor steps to work out the current position, so that if the user hits cancel, we can accurately return to start position. This will also enable the display of where we're moving to.

Todo: Bug: Using linear interpolation throws an exception.

Released 1.0.23.

Unfortunately this release needs an update to the kernel driver. This process should be something like: Select 'Tools/Uninstall driver', then exit FCut, wait a bit, and then restart it. FCut should then detect that the driver is missing and install the new version. You may need to repeat this process (I can't get windows to reliably stop the current driver).

Highlights in this release are probably: Continuing cleanup of GUIs (thanks Colin!), being able to pause and continue a cut (the bit that needs a new kernel driver), and the change to a treeview in the GUI (this is paving the way for spar cuts being added).

This release has only been lightly tested, so proceed with caution.

Details:

5-Nov-2006:

1. Feature: Moreil: Added ability to set washout on root as well as tip.

4-Nov-2006:

1. Bug: Moreil: Fix being able to remove a wing (broke it when adding treeview code).
2. Feature: Moreil: Add context menu to wing item in treeview. Currently only has 'Delete' in it. Finally made it work.
3. Bug: Hutchcj: Fixed Cancel button in Options tab
4. Internal: Hutchcj: Removed maximise and minimise from Options dialog
5. Internal: Hutchcj: Made Options dialog fixed size
6. Internal: Hutchcj: Made Cut dialog fixed size
7. Internal: Hutchcj: Updated ApplicationSettings->PropertyBindings to dummyCuts checkBox
8. Feature: Hutchcj: Hooked up Disable Warnings checkbox


2-Nov-2006:

1. Feature: Hutchcj: Added disable warnings in Options dialog
2. Feature: Hutchcj: Added Show Splash Screen in Options dialog
3. Bug: Hutchcj: Added OK button to Options dialog
4. Bug: Hutchcj: Update Cut and Manual Move dialog boxes (removed minimise, maximise buttons)
5. Feature: Hutchcj: Adjusted machine layout to suit 1024x768 res, nudges up the X and Y a little.
6. Feature: Moreil: Display the position we're in the process of moving to in the Cut dialog.
7. Feature: Moreil: Can pause and un-pause the wire motion via Pause button on the cut dialog.
8. Bug: Moreil: The cut dialog stays on screen until the wire stops moving.
9. Internal: Moreil: The tabbed control on the main form has been converted to a treeview instead. This is paving the way for the addition of spar cuts.
10. Bug: Moreil: Rounding errors were accumulating during the cut resulting in the wire not quite returning to the exact position it started. Fixed. And fixed again. And yet again!
11. Bug: Moreil: Hooked up options for not showing the splash dialog, and supressing speed warnings.

I don't understand why my table information doesn't get saved? Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but I can't seem to find it.

After programming an airfoil, there also doesn't seem to be a save here either.

Finally it appears that the Y initial move to get to the correct starting point, is so fast that the steppers can't start, they squeal loudly and then the x axis moves into position. That move is also faster than the normal cut speed. Since it is by now traveling through the foam, the wire drags until the actual airfoil section

This software is looking great, and the motions are clean. I may be asking for things you haven't had a chance to create yet, so consider this as just asking. Keep up the great work!!!!

John Lindsay

Just released 1.0.24. This adds more cleanups from Colin, working config saving, and a 'max move' speed box in the machine form.

John, setting a lower max speed should fix the 'squeal' problem you're seeing with your steppers.


WARNING: I've not cut anything with this release, so testing is non-existant. Let me know ASAP if I've buggered it up. :)


15-Nov-2006:

1. Bug: Moreil: Managed to delete the code to auto-save the machine description at some point. doh. fixed.
2. Feature: Moreil: Catch PM_CLOSING to ensure that the settings are saved when the program is closed.
3. Bug: Moreil: Managed to mess up the size for some of the controls. repair.
4. Feature: Moreil: Added 'max move speed' box to machine form. This allows setting a lower speed for out-of-foam moves.

9-Nov-2006:

1. Feature: Hutchcj: Added Icons for Open, Save, Cut and Cut To File
2. Bug: Hutchcj: In manual move on angle cuts, turned off Separate Cuts.
3. Internal: Hutchcj: Removed default filename on dialog open/save.

6-Nov-2006:

1. Feature: Hutchcj: Added angled cut feature in Manual Cut dialog.

Keep up the good work, I will be downloading the file very soon & giving it a try.



Rick

Hi guys,
Not sure how Ive missed this up till this point. Ive been cutting foam commercially for almost 3 years, and Im very interested in any new software.
Ill have to read thru all the posts to see what the status of it actually is but it looks good so far. It seems that some of the software ive looked into was adapted for use by foam cutters but gave more thought to milling and router uses. Will it be more geared toward wing cutters, or will it be possible to cut entire blocks of foam into mouldings like I do now. Ill be watching closely. If you would like to see a sample of one of my cut files let me know.

Thanks

Ed

I would be interested in seeing that. Right now, it's fairly targeted at what I cut, but complex shape cutting is high on my list to add soon.

Mike,

I just tried out the latest release (.24.1) and you have indeed fixed the Y axis position problem, however you have broken the x positioning! Thats right, the x axis now squeels after the Y axis positions, then it starts the cut.

Bummer!

I ran some CMM tests on the resulting airfoil and the data came out excellent! I have to get a better handle on the different kerf at different speeds through the foam, but that seems to be the only thing left to do. You have done an outstanding job on the math.

Question, Is is possible to separate the shells by running the wire horizontal at the moment the x direction is changed at the leading edge? The distance is available as the leading edge margin. You could then reverse direction for the same distance and continue the curve the rest of the way for the bottom of the airfoil. Just another suggestion. I guess this should be optional.

Keep up the great work. This keeps getting better and better.

John Lindsay

I started using version 22 to cut some real wings, and ran into a problem with the chord being too short. Version 24 was accurate but the x offset didn't work hence my attempt to use 22. Using the CMM again, I found out that the airfoil shape didn't match the template from compufoil. It was too short, and seemed to be a little fat.

Once again, version 24 didn't have this problem, only the x offset issue.

The data was an SD7037 airfoil, no skin or other offsets, no dihedrial, no twist , no anything.

I'm going to try and download the source code tomorrow then learn c# and see if I can join in the development. I'd love to help out

John Lindsay

VERY nice work!

I thought I would mention this software should work well for a wire EDM machine as well. Perhaps adding in options/functions for an EDM would be a good idea.

I have never run a wire EDM, but basic differences I see:

Wire is usually vertical with coolant running down the wire.
Wire is moving to keep from wearing it out.

As is it probably would work fine. Wire speed, Wire feed, and power are probably constant or have similar issues as cutting foam. Changing some dialog labels may be nice for the different machine orientation and material cut.

I haven't tried the software yet, so please forgive me is any of this is addressed.

Some other suggestions:

I noticed a VERY early comment about syncing the 2 end profiles strictly by length. If nothing further has been done, might I suggest automatic sync points at any corners, and a button to turn on/off the display of where they are. You could also then add manually inserting points, and adjusting the automatically inserted ones.
An idea for an automatic check that is only partly thought thru...

An automatic check to see if the wire crosses any point on either of the end geometry. This assumes the end geometry do not cross each other, or the comparison view arranges them that way. Not easy to explain, and probably harder to code... Think of a simple example of a straight , tapered airfoil. If the wire is not in sync at the trailing edge (one end on the top, and one on the bottom of the airfoil), it cuts into the middle of the trailing edge.

Just released 1.0.25. Just minor bug fixes, except for the more serious bug that John Lindsay found and fixed. (the initial move into the foam was the wrong speed).

Note that this version has _NO_ testing done on it. (My foam cutter is in pieces while I build my mill), so any feedback on it's ability to cut foam would be appreciated.

12-Dec-2006:

1. Bug: (John Lindsay): Found incorrect maximum speed move to start of cut.
2. Internal: Moreil: Moved controls to handle large fonts.

19-Nov-2006:

1. Internal: Hutchcj: Update Application Info
2. Internal: Hutchcj: Resize Machine form to match other forms
3. Internal: Hutchcj: Update MainForm to set minimum size for other forms

Hello Moriel. Just curious where your project is currently at. I'm very impressed with the work you've done. I'm not sure what you're background is and what your main use for hot wire cutting is, but I've been custom cutting foam for over 10 yrs now. I've done some pretty amazing work to date. You can check it out at www.revolutionaryminds.com.

I'd be very interested in checking out this program you've created and if it does what you've described, I guarantee I'd be able to line up Canada's largest foam manufacturer to consider purchasing is from you. They produce EPS, but they also custom cut the product. They have 8 plants that each have large CNC hot wire machines, but the software is very outdated and tolerences when cutting sharp points has always been a big problem. Having software that could automaticaly adjust temperature would blow them away.

Look forward to hearing back from you.

Good Morning.

As John said, the software keeps getting better and better. Amazing programming in this short of time.

Found 1 minor problem and 1 major problem.

Major: More high speed posoitioning problems. When cutting a tapered wing, such as a fin/rudder sectoin, the high speed out of foam move to get to the tip TE just sits there and buzzes, like the x and y entry moves did before. Cuts great after that, but in the wrong place.

Minor: when using the TE margin, after the cut the program must check the TE margin value twice instead of once, because it goes past the y zero point by the TE margin value.

Request: Would be nice to have the 'serarate block' cut the foam to wing pattern, such as tapered TE or LE or whatever, instead of just square.

Thanks, Don

Hi, I tried the software last night. It did not detect my controller board and kept popping up the "low frequency" message.

Any remedies?

btw, how do I get rid of the interupted holding port ???

Keep up the good work

I like what you are doing and would like to learn from you and this project.
Could you let me know what Software is used in this project? Like the one for GUI and the rest on the hard side, Driver development etc. Any sources, references that you may have? Thank you for you helps…(nuts)
Argustaurus
taurusargus.removethis@hotmail.com

Where can I find this to try out for myself? Can anyone tell me how it compares to other foam cutting software, like Foamworks or GMFC?

http://sourceforge.net/projects/fcut -- and I heard the server glitch has been fixed at homecnc.

Jim

Thanks Jim, That did work. I guess I'll just have to test each one against each other. Will F-Cut do other things besides wings?

Greg

http://sourceforge.net/projects/fcut -- and I heard the server glitch has been fixed at homecnc.

Jim

Thanks Jim, That did work. I guess I'll just have to test each one against each other. Will F-Cut do other things besides wings?
Greg




Looks like anything in X & Y.
moreil




It takes input from .dat files. These are basically a text file with a list of (X,Y) co-ordinates to move the wire to.

I'm unsure how you can convert an autocad file to a .dat file but i do belive that it's possible.




.

Hi Switcher,

I guess I'll just have to try it out and see what it can do. I do cut other things other than wings as I'm sure just about everyone who has a hotwire machine does. FOr some reason I can't get Foamworks to cut at the scale I enter into the settings area.

Thanks,
Greg


Looks like anything in X & Y.





.

Thanks Jim, That did work. I guess I'll just have to test each one against each other. Will F-Cut do other things besides wings?

Greg

Haven't tried yet! But, there is an Excell 2003 (MS Office 2003) based Vbasic that does - {Not to detract from moreil's software} The chap that did the work is a member here too. Link to his site: http://www.excelcut.netmyne.com

Soon I'll be building a small foam cutting rig - just need to settle on drivers and motors.

:confused: Sorry didn't mean to move us off thread :)
Jim

Link to ExcelMill doesn't work. I'm trying everything.

Haven't tried yet! But, there is an Excell 2003 (MS Office 2003) based Vbasic that does - {Not to detract from moreil's software} The chap that did the work is a member here too. Link to his site: http://www.excelcut.netmyne.com

Soon I'll be building a small foam cutting rig - just need to settle on drivers and motors.

:confused: Sorry didn't mean to move us off thread :)
Jim

Haven't tried yet! But, there is an Excell 2003 (MS Office 2003) based Vbasic that does - {Not to detract from moreil's software} The chap that did the work is a member here too. Link to his site: http://www.excelcut.netmyne.com

Soon I'll be building a small foam cutting rig - just need to settle on drivers and motors.

:confused: Sorry didn't mean to move us off thread :)
Jim

I am an avid bizarre RC aeromodeller and have just completed the mechanics of an NC Foamcutter using four steppers, lead screws and Precission ground bar. I am very pleased with the way it looks and feels. I have past experience of using Autocad to generate DXF's then Cadworks into DAT files and finally Foamworks into cut files and to drive the cutter which particular machine is unfortunately is no longer available to me. I completely understand the concept of single curve and conic limitations of hot wire cutting. I am currently on the electronics using Arrons circuit off the net but In spite of having successfully laid out a red and blue for a 64K expansion board in an earlier life have had to seek assistance from a electronics aware mate as I just can't get it going. I like the apparent simplicity of the Arron circuit but wonder if anyone has got one going or knows aof another available for free download. By the way am I also off thread?
Cheers
GEFR