What is your setup?

[dolanosa]

Hello all,

I'm starting my CNC foam cutter in a few days and I'm planning to use BobCAD/CAM since they're giving me a good price for the software. I will also use my laptop without serial connections, only LPT and USB available. Will that be a start? I know I need the table, 4 stepper motors, a 4 axis controller but what else? Does anyone know of controllers that can work through a parallel or USB port? I would also like to use the same controller for a CNC router. I will be making foam wings for airplanes mostly so if anyone here can tell me their setup, I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks.


Butch

[dolanosa]

Hello? Anyone here?

[MrBean]

Hi. Not quite sure if you're referring to the controller or the drivers. I'm going to assume you mean driver. (The electronics that drive the motors).

There's loads of open source drivers on this site, if you fancy building your own. There's also many posts about commercial drivers too. Have a look through the forums.

I would say that the LPT port is the most popular and has the most choice of drivers.

You can swap the drivers between machines (foam cutter/router/lathe), if they're running the same motors. If not you may be able to tweak the drivers settings for similar motors. If the motors were totally different, you'd need a different driver.

hope that helps some...

Regards.

Terry.

[dolanosa]

Thanks MrBean. Yes, I am talking about the driver for the motors. Right now, I'm actually in the process of deciding whether I should make a foam cutter or a router for making airplanes and parts. The foam cutter would be perfect for making some high performance glider wings but I think the router would be more versatile to which I can make just about everything for the planes. But I digress.

Basically, I will have to make both of the machines and thinking of getting HobbyCNC's 4-axis system with 200oz motors. That should be ok for both the router and the foam cutter, depending on what I make.

So, after getting the CAD/CAM software, the HobbyCNC system, and the machines, what else do I need? That should be it, right?

[MrBean]

I'm not sue what you get with the hobby cnc system. I can't connect to their site just now??

You'll need the controller software (Mach2/3) or similar, unless you included that in with the CAD/CAM software. Other than that, I guess that's it.

I'm not sure if you'd need a different software system for foam cutting. I have no experience with foam cutting.

Regards Terry.

[onthemarc]

Hi Butch

Have you bought your bobcad software yet? If you want to cut wings with a taper profile you need a 4 axis software like bobcad wire EDM version, or some of the other software found in this forum. bobcad v19 or v20 is just 3 axis software. The bobcad salesmen dont seem to know much about foam cutting or it's requirments.

Marc