The dialog about open source cnc hard/soft ware was very
informative. What feedback/information does the group have on
the Stewart Platform Hexapod / Parallel Kinematics based cnc
machines?

With the recent boosts in computer power/speed it appears these
are becoming practical for a number of applications, although an
automatic tool changer may be a challenge.

It appears these intrinsically have 6-axis capability, the three
traditional [XYZ] orthogonal axis and limited rotations [ABC]
about these.

This design appears to eliminate the need for large
castings/weldments, and the extremely high hand precision [i.e.
expensive] grinding/scraping typical of traditional way type cnc
machine tools. It also appears to make transportation and setup
much easier/cheaper because of their much lighter weight.

Is anyone using one of these in a production environment? How is
the programming compared to the traditional machines? Given the
amount/complexity of the actual position code I can see why a
pre-compiled tool path would be required.

I found a bunch of sites on google - a few that caught my eye
we

Retrofits:

http://www.mmsonline.com/articles/0900rt1.html

http://www.mmsonline.com/articles/0204rt1.html

New US manufacturer [ I would love to have one of these in my
garage, but 60k$US is a little steep ]

http://home.wi.rr.com/pathfind/

Uncle George

F. George McDuffee wrote in
:

I found a bunch of sites on google - a few that caught my eye
we

Retrofits:

http://www.mmsonline.com/articles/0900rt1.html

http://www.mmsonline.com/articles/0204rt1.html

New US manufacturer [ I would love to have one of these in my
garage, but 60k$US is a little steep ]

http://home.wi.rr.com/pathfind/

This site is one of my favorites

http://www.parallemic.org/

One of the coolest machines that I've seen that was actually practical was
the one by Honda Engineering. I'm having trouble finding it with Google but
here is an old MMS article that mentions it:

http://www.mmsonline.com/articles/019905.html

I was at that JIMTOF show and spent some time talking to one of their
engineers about the machine. Fast doesn't even begin to describe it. Holy
friggen s**t, comes pretty close.

--

Dan

On Mon, 06 Feb 2006 19:01:22 -0600, F. George McDuffee
wrote:

What feedback/information does the group have on
the Stewart Platform Hexapod / Parallel Kinematics based cnc
machines?

Start he http://tinyurl.com/7tje2

HTH
--
Cliff

On Mon, 06 Feb 2006 19:01:22 -0600, F. George McDuffee
wrote:

This design appears to eliminate the need for large
castings/weldments, and the extremely high hand precision [i.e.
expensive] grinding/scraping typical of traditional way type cnc
machine tools.

http://tinyurl.com/bunzl

RIP, Hoyt McKagen
--
Cliff