I beseech thee, gods, return life to this lifeless thread! Electrify its electrons, that my project may progress once more!
A new job in a new town got in the way. It happens. . Now that I'm settled in, I can focus on this project once more.
I'm working with Galil now to determine what I need to do to get my controller & stepper board sorted, so I'm coming back to the CAM-to-controller interface side of things which was still up in the air.
Galil's DMC language doesn't accept G Code, so this controller won't accept G-Code output from my CAM software (Fusion 360). Does anybody have any ideas for how to get past this rather obvious obstacle? I understand Mr. Dawson has done quite a bit of work creating a controller interface that works with the Galil products, but I know very little about what all it can do or how it works or whether he is still offering the software to testers. *Assuming* that aspect is resolved, I presume that a Fusion post-processor would still be needed to create the file feeding into that software. Has anyone else besides Camsoft been exploring 21X3 and newer Galil controllers over the last year? Mach4 finally has their plugin released, but I understand it's barely a beta version at this point (lacking basic features like rigid tapping) has little/no lathe functionality otherwise, and isn't tested or supported for the 2183 controller (which they say means my questions would go unanswered, and bugs unresolved). Whole lotta money for an unknown quantity (200$ + 100$ for Mach4 Hobby with the plugin)
A Fusion compiler & post processor that directly output Galil DMC script would be an awesome, obvious solution. Honestly, it would be a fantastic boon to hobbyists & DIYers seeing how capable the software & legacy drives are, and how affordable both are.