Machine showcase

[pminmo]

Maybe it's here and I just havent' stumbled across it. I'm thinking more than just the gallery, but the pictures would be tied in with it. More of a "I made it machine showcase". For example Xaxis, travel, screw or.., motor, cutting speed and rapids, step rate(full/half/1/4...) used, pictures of that axis. Text field for that axis. The overall format of the showcase by machine would be top level:
Full machine, pictures, text description for what a person did right or wish they had done different. Electronics, software used,
Xaxis......
Yaxis.....
Zaxis...
downloads of drawings of the machine or parts of it it available and author is willing to share.
Last part would be a forum that is tied to just that machine. Project logs are great, but sorting through them to extract the details..., seems like it should be easier.

Food for thought.

[CNCadmin]

Is this what your talking about- http://www.cnczone.com/gallery/showgallery.php/cat/505

[pminmo]

Kinda, but.....
That is organized more as a gallery, pictures in sequence. I think it would have a better look and feel if the top level "home made cnc machines" had one entry for each machine, like looking at your c: drive with folders underneath. Each folder would be username - machine description, when you opened the folder the first page you would see would be a high level view of the machine. i.e. picture of the entire machine, and techincal spec's and text field for description of the machine. You could drill down into folders for each axis, electronics and software used, with pictures and technical information of that axis.

Phil

[High Seas]

I really like the thinking here - the folders would be an excellent way to review each of the machine "types", components, and reason for the choices maybe. This approach could answer a lot of "newbie" questions and offer new ideas for machine improvements!
Phil - are you suggesting each member build the files and send in -- along a set of established "constructs" (ie, an outline of expected info- format, etc) -- or have (already way too busy) Paul pull it together? I'd vote for the former! Bet Paul would too. The current photos leave a lot of unanswered questions - but are a great start. Pics are very important as well as the "why" choices were made....

I'll think on this a bit while on watch and see how I can "muddy " the patch -- if I haven't already! Cheers - Jim

Wireless from Laughing Buddha

[JavaDog]

It would be nice if a short description was REQUIRED to post a picture. Some people post up a picture - to use in a thread - but when you come across it in the gallery you're left going "Huh? What is that?"...

[pminmo]

Hi, High Seas
No my thinking is the user would built the info, Pual would provide the tool to build as part of the cnczone. The tool would be basically one or two "forms" - (fields to fill in with titles and descriptions and memory joggers) Attached is kind of the format in my mind:

Phil

p.s. I'll try to evolve this some more and post later in the day.

[Bub]

That would be pretty neat.

[Bloy2004]

yes, I would like to see something like this in the zone....an organized reference package allowing interested viewers to easily navigate through machine specs,components, etc. all with pictures and text.

[pminmo]

Updated my graphic, others?

[zoltan]

Phil,

This idea is great. I hope soon to be one of those people uploading the file. I think that for the beginning the structure you have proposed is OK. We can improve later.

[skippy]

I like both this idea and that of Chunky's as two separate ideas in making this place more efficient for research and possibly to cut down on bandwidth required to run this forum which must be a growing concern for Paul.

I wonder if it would be possible to contact all those that have sent in pictures re machine builds and say to them something like: "We are reorganising all our machine build photos and therefore ask if you wouldn't mind reposting your photos using the supplied format and including information in the required fields so that people can understand your build better.



EDIT I don't know if I said it clearly enough above but my idea was that every person who has posted a picture or pictures of their machine will be asked to change the location of those photos and put them into the kind of multi layer format we are talking about here and the old photos/locations get dumped. The responsibility being on the individual members to reformat and dump old images. Don't know if this would be workable or not as it's just an idea.
In the interests of reorganising this site to make it more usable and to save bandwidth (space required to host it) I very much doubt that any member would object to doing this. Obviously it's Paul that has the last say on what will or will not be done.

[High Seas]

I like it a lot - what a great summary page/photo for all users! I'm a bit far from my machine now, but could "fake the data" pretty close.
Any "hot" links to/between the images? Or, start off easy and simple -- to get members involved and filling in the blanks?
Sortta looks like an xls file with an embedded photo - is that the plan? I suppose there are some folks clever 'enuf to figure how to embed the info so its there "behind" the image - your proposal has my vote to collect the info, but a more sophisticated less busy presentation would keep the images cleaner.
Way to go Phil! Jim