google-earth anybody?

[Gene Heskett]

On Monday 30 July 2012 16:50:36 Ric Moore did opine:

> On 07/30/2012 04:04 PM, Gene Heskett wrote:
> > So no, no metal carving machines are being operated by this machine,
> > and likely never will be.  Big Iron when I built it yes, capable of
> > running even small iron well, no.  Not without offloading much of the
> > control to dedicated boards.
> 
> Oh, well install your nvidia drivers to it and sin no more. <grins> Ric
> 
> p/s what WOULD be interesting is running your milling system with
> something like proxmox with a teeny tiny little kernel on it and run
> your setup from it. Might be faster than heck when all of your desktop
> chores are offloaded to a browser on another machine. You could run your
> lathe from a lap top while seated on the throne

You think I can't do that now?  But there is one thing missing, a camera, 
and a robot to take a measurement of a test cut, and then tell the proggy 
how far off the zero mark it was.  I'd need one arm to run the caliper, and 
one arm to aim the camera at the caliper so I can read it.

But really, that is a poor excuse since I can buy cables that will let me 
use the average $30 digital caliper by reading it out the calipers serial 
port that is available by sliding a cover off the top right corner of the 
caliper's display head.  Your trivia factoid for the day...

The problem with a lathe is that there is no reliable method of advancing a 
tool to the true centerline of the spindle and setting that to 0, plus or 
minus .0001".  There are no facilities that could be raised to establish 
this 'zero' point, at least not with the required accuracy.  One can 
calibrate it so if you tell it what cutting tool is mounted, it can adjust 
to match that tool, but what if the tool dulls and is replaced or 
resharpened?  So you may as well make the light test cut, measure it and 
tell the lathe that the tool is now at 0.797" in radius or diameter, which 
is not the same.  The software has mode switches of course.

> or vacationing in
> Quebec. Ric

That too, but remembering all the (*&^% PW's to get to the machine from the 
outside world would be a chore.  Besides, I don't speak French, never got 
far enough in school for that to be a required subject.  So officially (my 
record speaks for itself in broadcasting & electronics) I am a dummy with 
an 8th grade education.  People with a vested interest in higher education 
simply do not understand that ones education can take place without the 
confines of a school building.

Cheers, Gene
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