"Hardware" GCode interpreter

[aubrey]

Originally Posted by ESjaavik Did not mean to start a religious war.

Don't worry, no offence taken!
I use windows all day every day and roundly curse it at least every hour.
Funny thing about democracy... Its the only "system" that by definition, allows other "systems" to also be acceptable.
Best

[Lionclaw]

Has anyone considered using an FPGA? Check out this board for $99:

http://www.digilentinc.com/info/S3Board.cfm

It's just a matter of using the Xilinx tools to create the software. I just finished a course at cal state where we designed a 16-bit RISC processor and loaded it into the FPGA.

This thing is great too because it has VGA out and a PS/2 port. So you could have a monitor and keyboard.

[harryn]

Hi, I am looking for a (reasonably) economical way to run a "planned" 4 axis mill / router. (hobby use)

I am very tempted by Rhino, which is win based, so it would be handy of course to use the same computer for the control as well.

I found these motors

http://www.imshome.com/mdrive42acplus_mdi.html

which can plug right into a USB port and AC. IMS provides some control software (m code) as well.

I have no experience at all with G code / cnc yet, so wide open to various approaches. I am just curious if there is a way we can use something like this to simplify our life of making a CAD to CAM arrangement.

[MILLER_OF_DEE]

Hi Guys,

I have been watching you guys talking about G-Code Interpreter. Some one opting for DSP and some one for PIC, and of course some people being scary about PIC will not do, DSP will do, what about circular interpolation.

Good news for every one that I have implemented linear and circular interpolation in a PIC, yes PIC18F458/PIC18F452 running at 40MHz and I have made some STARS of various corners and aspect ratio, and some round shapes, rectangle with sharp corners, and recatngles with round corners too.
In both metric and inch units.

I will soon be posting the schematic and the test code in hex format for you guys to test. Once I finalize the main interface cause right now I have graphic LCD 128x64 KS0108 based controller, and a 4x3 keypad installed. I am going for 240x128 T6963C based LCD and some really serious input interface for it to represent my work piece.

Later I am planning to decode the following mostly used G-Codes in the
PIC18F458/452

G00 positioning (rapid traverse)
G01 linear interpolation (feed)
G02 circular Interpolation CW
G03 circular Interpolation CCW
G04 dwell, a programmed time delay
G20 input in inch
G21 input in mm
G90 absolute dimension input
G91 incremental dimension input

Till then
Regards for every body on CNCZONE

[andy55]

An exact stop trajectory planner is not hard to implement using any hardware or software. By that I mean that the machine comes to a full stop at the end of each move, and so it also starts all moves from a full stop.

The trick (if you want to do 3D moldmaking or complex paths in general) is to make a trajectory planner that 'cuts corners' within a specified tolerance and keeps up the velocity of the machine. That is nontrivial, and I'd be delighted to look at any open-source implementations anyone has come up with. I've tried to understand how it's done in EMC2, but really going through the code and math requires more time than I have right now...

[stephenbuck]

This also sounds a lot like what the NCPod (www.oemtech.com/ncpod) does, although it seems to have been in beta testing for quite a long time. Does anyone know the status of the NCPod?

[mogamel]

Hello all
nice to meet you
can any one provide me Processor Breakout Board ( pcb and schematich )
thank you

[James Newton]

Ok, so I'm yet another guy who is interested in this idea. I've got some code partly done that does the 3 d line to step and direction thing, but also managing ramping and acceleration. The code is at
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...t?hl=en&pli=1#

And I'd love to have some feedback on it.

If space and time allow, I'll add a very limited G code interpreter to it.

[ammarjaspal]

Hi everyone,I am new to the forum.I am doing my final year project on CNC and i want some guide line from u guyz.
1.Can g-code be converted to hex file?
2.And if so than which microcontroller is best to use(PIC or AVR)

[James Newton]

Originally Posted by ammarjaspal Hi everyone,I am new to the forum.I am doing my final year project on CNC and i want some guide line from u guyz. 1.Can g-code be converted to hex file? 2.And if so than which microcontroller is best to use(PIC or AVR)

You appear to be confusing data (g-code) with program/firmware (for uC) with data format (hex file). g-code, like any ASCII text, could easily be converted to a hex format:
techref.massmind.org/techref/ascii.htm
but that wouldn't do anything for a uC unless you find a program to load into the uC (usually in hex format) which can interpret the g-code and signal drivers to drive motor to move a CNC machine.

This page might link to what you are looking for (in the "See also" section)
techref.massmind.org/techref/io/embeddedCNCs.htm