SpiroCNC

[spalm]

OK
Here is my VB6 attempt at a toy that was posted in the club house.

I never intended for anyone else to see it, so it is kind of a hack job. Lots of global variables, all in one module, not a lot of comments, etc. But if anyone wants to play with it....

Enjoy,
Steve

[PEU]

Steve, this is very generous of you!

I dont have any VB training but I will look for sure.

I think opening a project in Sourceforge will attract more people to the spirograph.

Anyway. thanks again


Pablo

[Switcher]

.


Thanks, Steve

I'm working with VB.NET, If I get a chance I'll convert your code to .NET,
I'm real busy now (work), I might look at it this weekend.

Does anyone out there have both VB6 & VB.NET? The reason I ask is, I don't have VB6, If someone else has both versions they could use the Wizard in VB.Net to convert all the Spiro code. (It should go a lot faster, than sorting it all out by hand)

I'll post here, If I get anything done.

Thanks again for posting the source, I'll make sure any code I change/add, gives you credit for your cool program.

Also, are you sure the code is in VB6?

VERSION 5.00
Object = "{3B7C8863-D78F-101B-B9B5-04021C009402}#1.2#0"; "RICHTX32.OCX"
Begin VB.Form SpiroMain 
   Caption         =   "SpiroCNC"
   ClientHeight    =   9000
   ClientLeft      =   165
   ClientTop       =   555
   ClientWidth     =   10410
   FillColor       =   &H00FFFFFF&
   BeginProperty Font 
      Name            =   "Courier"
      Size            =   15
      Charset         =   0
      Weight          =   700
      Underline       =   0   'False
      Italic          =   0   'False
      Strikethrough   =   0   'False
   EndProperty

It says (VERSION 5.00), I havn't worked with VB5 or VB6, so I'm not sure.

Later...
Jerry


.

[spalm]

It says Visual Basic 6.0 in the help about.

My real programmer friends tell me that the auto VB6 to .net converters only get you somewhat there. I am much more used to VisualC. I just picked VB6 because I had just finished a serial communication monitor (VisualC has no serial support in XP) and it was fresh in my mind. Also it had a better graphics window. VB.net has a much better graphics window and other tools that would have come in handy. Besides, it was only supposed to be a two evening toy.

Steve

[spalm]

Nothing new here, just some housekeeping.

I have received some PM requests for the SpiroCNC program and it seems to be hard to find in the Zone’s Clubhouse so I thought I would repost it here for safe keeping.

Unzip the Spiro program in its own directory of your choosing and then double click on the SpiroCNC icon.

If you get an error about richtx32.ocx (RichText32bit), unzip Richtx32.zip in the Windows/System32 directory.

If you get an error about a missing DLL you need MSSTDFMT.DLL
(Microsoft Standard Data Formatting Object DLL)
Unzip the Msstdfmt.zip in the Windows/System32 directory and then you need to register it. This is done by clicking Start\Run and then typing
C:\WINDOWS\system32\regsvr32.exe Msstdfmt.dll

Here is a link to the original thread:
http://www.cnczone.com/forums/showth...light=spirocnc

I reposted some of the pictures of carvings so they would be easier to find.

Steve

[Madclicker]

Great program Steve. I could never get anything as elegant, but I had minimum time to mess with it. Any advice on how to choose the parameters to get cuts as cool as these?

[spalm]

Hey Steve,

Elegant? It’s just a toy.

Seriously, when I was developing this, ideas and suggestions were coming in all over the place. It started out real simple and kind of mushroomed (i.e. got too complicated, my boss calls it ‘creeping elegance’). But it can still be run in simple mode if you ignore some of the check/value boxes.

I was bad and did not save the source for the design pictures posted. At least in the later versions one can save the .spr files to re-run and share. Point to a particular design and I will try to reproduce it and explain how it was done. I thought about creating a user manual, but you know what we do with those things. And I kind of lost interest.

Almost all are cut with a 1/2" Vee bit.

Steve

[Madclicker]

Well, I think some of those cuts are really nice, and the one I made for the inlaws dropped jaws but were nowhere near as "elegant".

I never did get the hang of the spirograph when i was a kid!

[merrittgene2]

I found CNCzone while searching for a CNC spirograph program. but now I'm bummed that I can't get it to work and it appears to be unsupported. :-(

Did anyone ever post the VBA code somewhere so someone else could revive it?

[cyclestart]

Another option:
Inkscape has a spirograph and gcode_tools found under the extensions tab. I wouldn't describe either as super intuitive but they do work ( I tested using inkscape 0.91)
An alternative to gcode_tools is exporting from inkscape as dxf and importing to F-engrave.