What got you into CNC ?

job

Undertook a part-time diploma in CAD, and part of it was a CAM module where we got to play with an Anilam CNC.
That's it - I was hooked!
Bought some Z-axis parts off TradeMe (NZ eBay, you could say), then set about collecting parts. Still have those parts - there may now be enough to make another machine!
Saw the Busellato at an auction, got it for $2k, then it sat outside under a tarpaulin for several years before we got a barn built to house it. Removed the rust and got it working, until I knocked the controller off the cabinet onto the concrete floor, never quite worked again, leading me to Mesa and LinuxCNC!

Fascinated for thing's that can do automated step's...
Looking how a machine or cnc process can make products is fascinating...

My first robot was a Fanuc 430d. I tried to attach some stepper's on this robot. At that time i had no clue about how to program this. But i had made a excel interpolation model for a 6 axis robot. So i thought maybe i can connect this to make a robot working like a xyz cnc. The project was not finished, what is not my style.

After that i did a 2 head's flowdrill gantry for a customer with a automated profile loader. This machine was made without break out board. It was wired straight from the lpt1 port cable.. Haha. This was 21 years ago. The machine worked on raw gcode.

At this moment, 21 year's later. In the past 3 year's invoked with linux. My world is very different now.
There are no limit's anymore to make (hardware) or code (software) something...

Actually, now I think of it back in the very early 90's before parallel port breakout boards existed, I made one for a window display for the "Apple And Grape Festival" in the town I lived.

I had noticed that displays that won the competition had moving parts. I borrowed a 6 bottle wine filling machine and a wine press from customers. I replaced the wine press handle with one made of PVC connected to a motor. We drilled a hole in the base of 6 bottles and siliconed in an outlet hose connected to 12V windscreen washer pumps. I mounted a 12 volt light behind each bottle. So then I wrote a program in DOS that triggered the pumps on a timer directly manipulating the parallel port based on a circuit a mate sketched out for me. I made a nice GUI in DOS with barcharts showing fake levels etc.

So we filled the bottle filler with water and red food colouring, the bottles would fill by a syphon apparatus and stop when full. So all we did was empty a bottle back into the filler tank one at a time and shine a light on it, turn the wine press handle every now and again and trigger another pump that ran water out of the wine press back into the press. When emptied, the bottles just filled up again by syphon.

By the end of the day, we had Angelo, the winemaker sitting outside our window giving passers by a running commentary!

Needless to say we won the competition and I received some nice crystal glasses, decanter and a silver tray. I'm sad to report, I broke a glass today so there are not many left!

If only I knew the value of what I invented or something about CNC back then (which I think predated Linuxcnc and Mach3)

BigJohnT wrote:

. what a mistake that was lol.

JT

You don´t say ( have to agree, it is still crap!)

I work at a machine shop. I program and setup 3 and 5 axis machines.

I converted my grizzly x3 to cnc stepper

I work at a cnc router shop.

I found Linuxcnc as a way to revive a custom built 8 spindle gang router after a lightning strike. With the help of Andy Pugh and others I was able to.