Subject: CNC software

From: [email-masked] (Mark Fraser)
Date: 10 Jan 1994 21:23:06 -0800

Who uses what packages on their pc to drive stepper motors, for 
example on mills, lathes etc?  I am told that Ability Systems in PA
make a good package, what else exists?  What is the collective exper
ience with the Ability package?

Anyone got a package for sale?

Any articles hiding at an FTP site/

Cheers and thanks / mark

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From: [email-masked] ()
Date: 11 Jan 1994 07:50:32 GMT

> Any articles hiding at an FTP site/

  I would also like to know pricing, and maint. agreements...

  EBo --

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From: [email-masked] (ron ginger)
Date: 13 Jan 1994 18:18:09 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>, [email-masked] () writes:

|>> Who uses what packages on their pc to drive stepper motors, for 
|>> example on mills, lathes etc?  I am told that Ability Systems in PA
|>> make a good package, what else exists?  What is the collective exper
|>> ience with the Ability package?
|>> 
|
I bought the INDEXER.LPT package from Ability..Its US$250. Very nice folks
on the phone, helpfull, willing to talk.

Ive only played around with the package so far. I bought a step motor kit from
a surplus place for $12 with an SAA1042 driver chip. I hooked it up and from
the software spun a motor around. 
I tried to attach the motro to a Unimat 3 butit was to low power and would stall
even moving the carriage without a tool.

About that time I got sidetracked into building a machine to cut foam cores
for model airplane wings. The mechanics are complete, my friend is now doing
teh software, but since hes a software engineer he couldnt bring himself
to buy a package, so now he got several weeks into writing software.

I found teh control language of INDEXER.LPT very nice, and the whole conceept
of it being a PC driver, using a cheap parrallel port seems to me to be
excellent.

ron ginger