where to find free controller design software

[oaktree444]

My search for better,& cheaper, controll has led me to N.I.S.T.
National Inistitute of Standards and Technology...I'm sure many of you have heard of EMC....well NIST provides the source code from which EMC derived...
This is the U.S. goverments industral standards...there has been post up-dates as recent as of 10-31-2005...support for various platforms is current...if you have programming experience...or are just courious check it out...things to look for ....MEL....(Manfacturing Engineering Laboratory)......RCS...(Real-time Control Systems Liabary-Software and Documentation)....It's all on there and it's all free to public....Source codes..compliers...pre-written software....open sources...EMC (Enhanced Machine Controller links) and plenty of contacts and e-mail sources for more information....if any of you find this helpfull drop me a line....lets take the bite out of motion controll expence's ....and help set a Standard for all...

NIST link

about MEL


link to RCS liabary

[mpictor]

Uhhh... did you try googling for the phrase "enhanced machine controller"?

First hit - http://linuxcnc.org - look at it. See also http://sf.net/projects/emc for user and developer mailing lists and for the very latest code.

EMC development has been taken over by the community. There are two versions currently:

• EMC (AKA EMC1) is stable and in use by many people around the world.
• EMC2 is under heavy development (thus not considered stable enough for widespread use). Lots of new features, including an integrated software PLC and much more flexibility when it comes to the computer-machine interface.

The "Brain Dead Install" (BDI) at linuxcnc.org is the best way to get started, and the BDI-Live version won't mess up your windows disk... it runs completely in memory unless you tell it to install - and yes, it is entirely functional from memory.

Note that EMC will N O T run on windows. It requires a real-time operating system; this is provided by the RTAI add-on to Linux. And anyway -- do you really want to be doing a 400 IPM rapid when Windows decides to bluescreen?! I didn't think so...

Mark

[oaktree444]

Thank you for the reply Mark.
I really wasn't posting for the general hobbiest or shop user...but more along the line for the designers...It is my dream for a common (standard) language to be intergreated....As stated in MEL's objective industry needs functionally, and common (standard) coding so that things work seamlessly...I know that technology advances and changes but in order to be competative in a global market we all must start working together...if designers and engineers will stop ""target marketing"" and start ""industry marketing"" there won't be need for statements like ""oh! you'll also need to purchace"" or ""Yea! on that machine you'll have to"" ...A common (standard) format needs to be realized and used....I know it's a big dream...but dreams are better than the nightmare's .....Thank you again for the reply...

[DerekZahn]

I'm not sure what you mean by a common format. A format for what?

Can you give a specific example of the problem you see as unsolved and some notion of a data format or piece of code that would solve the problem?

I'm afraid I'm not sure what you are talking about.

Thanks!

[oaktree444]

How many post processors are stored on your computer??