Wes wrote:

Is that what I would call a PCB board stuffer?

Slight confusion, this is for SMT, not through-hole, but, yet,
it places the parts on the board. I paid $1500 for the machine
in completely-working condition, with 50 feeders (these go for
$200-300 each, used). I had to pay about $2500 to have a door
widened for the machine - ouch!

Looks like your knees don't beat into it compared to a rectangular stand.

How much was the freight on that big rock and what were you scraping?
Ahh, I went out to the local KBC store and picked it up in my
Toyota Corolla station wagon. They guys in the warehouse were a
LITTLE leery about putting a 375 Lb (shipping weight) plate in
the back of my car, but I figured two big guys could easily
weigh that much. The rear DID sag a bit, but I got it home,
then had a big problem dragging it out of the back of the car
and hurt my back. Oh, but I saved a bundle on shipping, never
mind that my back will never be quite the same!!!

I scraped a Michael Morgan straightedge, and then used that to
"scrape" my 15" Sheldon lathe
http://jelinux.pico-systems.com/sheldon.html
I have since scraped in a set of 3 right angles against each
other, and will someday use those to redo my Bridgeport.

The reason I sav "scrape" above is the Sheldon had flame
hardened tool steel ways that a carbide scraper blade just
glides over, doesn't even leave a scratch! I had to spot as
usual, then use a die grinder and white Cratex muslin-bonded
polishing wheels to remove material in a controlled fashion.
VERY slow!

Jon

Martin H. Eastburn wrote:
Good input.

Cummings Industry - are they still part of Cummings Truck depots where
they rebuild the tractors that drag long trailers over the country.
It's Cummins, and I have no idea what connection they have with
the large Diesel engine builder. The stuff looks like Harbor
Freight in every possible way, and most of what is there is
totally awful crap. I did buy an engine hoist on eBay that
would be quite similar to what they have, and it works Ok for
home shop use. But, I'm real leery of buying any tools at a
place like that, everything just looks so CHEEZY! They have
sale sheets in the local newspaper.

Jon

DoN. Nichols wrote:
Jon Elson wrote:

Was this a genuine DEC drive, or a third-party drive?
Fujitsu SCSI drive, 3rd party controller.
I started with DEC MFM drives, went to ESDI, finally to SCSI.
I have a Pertec formatter to SCSI
adaptor that might work for that. Again, haven't gotten around
to fooling with it.


So the 8" drive was SCSI, not SMD?

Yes, but the above was talking about a mag tape adaptor i got of
a Digi-Data streaming tape drive we had at work - the worst POS
I've ever seen. Brand-new drive, 4 months old, started burning
out read-amp chips, and they cost $100 each. I have some
CDC-MPI Keystone 92185 tape drives, really good streaming
1600/6250 BPI drives, but these have the Pertec formatter
interface, and SCSI would be a lot easier way to connect to a
PC. I haven't tried this adaptor out to see if it will work
with the keystone drives, but I suspect it will.

While I took to unix very happily -- through the OS-9 path.
I've never used VMS, but the flavor of the commands which I have seen
(and the ftp format needed to get things from the original Simtel-20,
which was a DecSystem 20, IIRC) kept me convinced that I would not like
it. :-)


Well, it didn't have the piping concept, but the command
language was VERY well constructed and uniform over all the
commands, unlike the way things are in the Unix shells.
One major difference is VMS's Record Management System was part
of the kernel, so the file system was essentially a database, if
you needed to search on record keys.
I cloned a National Semi 32016
system that I talked a department at work to buy, running Genix,
and used it for a while.


Hmm ... I've got a couple of Tektronix 6130s -- 32016 based,
with a BSD 4.2 flavor of unix.

I don't even know what a 6130 is. I have some Tek 9200 logic
analyzers that have 68030's in them, I think.


Hmm ... SunOs 4.1.x came with a Versatec driver as one of the
standard ones. I just never had the printer to use with it. :-) (And I
did write to a Versatec from a CDC 6600 long ago, writing some 3D view
graphics files -- and I was not impressed with the quality -- just the
length of plot which could come out of it. :-)

Yeas, as soon as the first under-$10K laser printer came out,
Versatec was DEAD! Horrible ugly-feeling paper, like handling a
dirty chalkboard.

I've never really seen a linux that I like. I have been really
happy with both the old SunOs 4.1.x (BSD flavored) and the later
versions of Solaris -- especially Solaris 10, which you can download for
free from Sun's site. I also like OpenBSD for systems which are going
to be exposed to the outside net, though less so for workstations. They
make great firewalls, however -- and on just about any platform you have
around. :-)
Well, I have one app that NEEDS Linux, the EMC machine tool
control. And another that is only supported on Linux and
Windows, I think, FlightGear. Is there a VMware version for
Solaris? I need that to run Windows apps under Linux.

O.K. You got into EMC rather early allright. Are you using the
Servo-to-go card and servos, or are you using steppers?
I used a Servo-to-Go card for years, but eventually had to
upgrade the PC hardware (going flaky) and move to more current
software, so I finally started using my own interface hardware
on it. (Something like the shoemaker's kids going barefoot.)
I am a stepper-hater, or servo-snob, so I don't have any
steppers on my machines.

Jon

--I don't suppose it's possible, but were it me I think I'd try to
stuff a cargo container in that hole, then build the shop on top of that,
then cut a hole in the roof of it to get your 'basement'. Prolly not
practical tho; I think you've got the right idea of trenching, then filling
with rebar and concrete.

--
"Steamboat Ed" Haas : Whatever happened
Hacking the Trailing Edge! : to Tom Nelson?
www.nmpproducts.com
---Decks a-wash in a sea of words---

Stormin Mormon wrote:
The first shed I built, I just threw full sheets of plywood together. The
shed ended up being about 18 feet tall, towered over the trailer I was
living in.

That's pretty cool.

John

On 2007-11-26, Jon Elson wrote:
DoN. Nichols wrote:
Jon Elson wrote:

[ ... ]

So the 8" drive was SCSI, not SMD?

Yes, but the above was talking about a mag tape adaptor i got of
a Digi-Data streaming tape drive we had at work - the worst POS
I've ever seen. Brand-new drive, 4 months old, started burning
out read-amp chips, and they cost $100 each.

Ouch!

I have some
CDC-MPI Keystone 92185 tape drives, really good streaming
1600/6250 BPI drives, but these have the Pertec formatter
interface, and SCSI would be a lot easier way to connect to a
PC. I haven't tried this adaptor out to see if it will work
with the keystone drives, but I suspect it will.

Hmm ... HP made a nice front-loading self-threading tape drive
(which we had with the Solbournes), which was SCSI interface. And I've
got one which is AT&T branded, and which was thus slightly incompatible
with the Sun or Solbourne drivers of the time. I should try it with
Solaris 10 to see whether it can work properly there.

While I took to unix very happily -- through the OS-9 path.
I've never used VMS, but the flavor of the commands which I have seen
(and the ftp format needed to get things from the original Simtel-20,
which was a DecSystem 20, IIRC) kept me convinced that I would not like
it. :-)


Well, it didn't have the piping concept, but the command
language was VERY well constructed and uniform over all the
commands, unlike the way things are in the Unix shells.

Hmm ... while with unix you can pick the shell which you
particularly like. I use tcsh for a command-line shell, and zsh for
writing scripts -- because it will do the looping structures from tcsh,
but is a bit friendlier for certain other features. :-)

One major difference is VMS's Record Management System was part
of the kernel, so the file system was essentially a database, if
you needed to search on record keys.

Well ... I have known of people who use the long filenames
possible in the BSD FFS (also present in all versions of SunOs and
Solaris which I have used) as the first stage of a database, using the
shell's wildcarding to pre-select records form very ugly filenames. :-)

I cloned a National Semi 32016
system that I talked a department at work to buy, running Genix,
and used it for a while.


Hmm ... I've got a couple of Tektronix 6130s -- 32016 based,
with a BSD 4.2 flavor of unix.

I don't even know what a 6130 is. I have some Tek 9200 logic
analyzers that have 68030's in them, I think.

The 6130 was also built on the 32016 -- and its main claim to
fame is an IEEE-488 interface for controlling test equipment. All of an
80 MB internal disk drive, and no format command on the system -- but it
did have a plugin card to allow SCSI devices, which I used for backup
tapes -- but never found a way to format drives properly for mounting on
the system. It had the ability to be a workstation, but neither of mine
had the framebuffer cards, so I used them either via serial port and
terminals, or rlogin via ethernet. (Needless to say, these days I would
keep them on the protected side of a firewall -- though probably most
attack would be looking for newer systems. :-)


Hmm ... SunOs 4.1.x came with a Versatec driver as one of the
standard ones. I just never had the printer to use with it. :-) (And I
did write to a Versatec from a CDC 6600 long ago, writing some 3D view
graphics files -- and I was not impressed with the quality -- just the
length of plot which could come out of it. :-)

Yeas, as soon as the first under-$10K laser printer came out,
Versatec was DEAD! Horrible ugly-feeling paper, like handling a
dirty chalkboard.

:-)

I wonder what the technology which It used was? It looked sort
of like a raster scanned photo buildup. Was it wet or dry processed?

Now, if I could just find a good laser printer which could print
on a roll of paper, I would be happy. :-)

I've never really seen a linux that I like. I have been really
happy with both the old SunOs 4.1.x (BSD flavored) and the later
versions of Solaris -- especially Solaris 10, which you can download for
free from Sun's site. I also like OpenBSD for systems which are going
to be exposed to the outside net, though less so for workstations. They
make great firewalls, however -- and on just about any platform you have
around. :-)
Well, I have one app that NEEDS Linux, the EMC machine tool
control.

Maybe or maybe not. Solaris is supposed to be a real-time OS to
start with, and with a PCI version of the Servo-To-Go card it should be
possible to bring it up on any of the Ultra systems (which all have PCI
slots instead of Sbus.) I've been sort of considering trying that with
my Bridgeport. (The linux seems to not be stable with my current
hardware, and I've never finished the conversion of the machine -- which
started life as a Bridgeport Series-I BOSS-3 running on an old quad-wide
LSI-11. The system had a massive case of electronic Altzheimer's, and
would forget what it was doing within fifteen seconds of being reset.
Usually, that was not enough time to load a tiny progrma to test it. :-)

More about it later.

And another that is only supported on Linux and
Windows, I think, FlightGear. Is there a VMware version for
Solaris? I need that to run Windows apps under Linux.

That I don't know. I've never wanted to run Windows under
Solaris -- though I do have a card which should allow me to run it in
one of the PCI slots -- if I ever take the time to load the drivers and
then the OS.

O.K. You got into EMC rather early allright. Are you using the
Servo-to-go card and servos, or are you using steppers?
I used a Servo-to-Go card for years, but eventually had to
upgrade the PC hardware (going flaky) and move to more current
software, so I finally started using my own interface hardware
on it. (Something like the shoemaker's kids going barefoot.)
I am a stepper-hater, or servo-snob, so I don't have any
steppers on my machines.

Well ... I've got steppers on my Emco-Maier Compact-5/CNC lathe,
but it came with them.

I've been converting the controller to EMC based, and the
steppers to servo motors, with one serious hangup. The servos are a lot
longer than the original steppers. The Y-axis stepper fit into a recess
in the knee, and the servo can't fit. I've got to build an alternate
motor mount/belt guard which slopes at a 45 degree angle down to the
right, so the motor winds up beside the knee instead of trying to stab
through the knee's jackscrew. :-) And to do this properly, I really need
welding capability -- which I do not yet have. Or I need to get the
motor mount assembly from a later Bridgeport -- from after *they* moved
to servos.

I've got all the servos, and some nice self-powered servo amps.
It will all go into a (Plexi)glass-fronted relay rack to keep the chips
out of the electronics, and the vibration out of the electronics, too.
I plan to hang a dedicated VFD on the spindle motor, and use the
Servo-to-go card's 4th axis to feed it command voltage for the selected
spindle speed to keep from having to crank the pulley speed change
cranks as much. :-)

Enjoy,
DoN

--
Email: | Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564
(too) near Washington D.C. | http://www.d-and-d.com/dnichols/DoN.html
--- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---

DoN. Nichols wrote:


Hmm ... HP made a nice front-loading self-threading tape drive
(which we had with the Solbournes), which was SCSI interface. And I've
got one which is AT&T branded, and which was thus slightly incompatible
with the Sun or Solbourne drivers of the time. I should try it with
Solaris 10 to see whether it can work properly there.

There were two front-loading 9-track drives. i don't think
either of them were very good, but the Digi-Data was certainly
one of the worst things I've ever seen. It could have amazing
disasters during threading, and I suspect any tape in the drive
when it faults or loses power is trash, as it will simply slide
off the hub onto the bottom of the drive when tension is lost.


Well ... I have known of people who use the long filenames
possible in the BSD FFS (also present in all versions of SunOs and
Solaris which I have used) as the first stage of a database, using the
shell's wildcarding to pre-select records form very ugly filenames. :-)

No, this wasn't just file names, (although it was a part of
directory searching) it had all the possible lowest-level
indexed, multi-keyed and hashed record location features built
into the FS.
Yeas, as soon as the first under-$10K laser printer came out,
Versatec was DEAD! Horrible ugly-feeling paper, like handling a
dirty chalkboard.


:-)

I wonder what the technology which It used was? It looked sort
of like a raster scanned photo buildup. Was it wet or dry processed?

Very wet. There was a big bottle of toner, which had something
like laser toner suspended in some kind of solvent that smelled
a little like paint thinner, a little like gasoline. Just
writing about it, I can smell the stuff now! Yucck!

Anyway, the paper had a (clay?) dielectric on one side, it had a
backplate with about 1" bars that were charged to 800 V, and
wire electrodes at 400 V (2112 across ~10.5") to give 200
pixels/inch.
A massive stepper motor drove the paper feed. It could do 1200
LPM in print mode, the paper just SPEWED out of the thing. It
could have gone faster, but the stepper couldn't keep up. No
computer we had could pump raster data fast enough to keep up
with it, but we could still get one-page plots in 10-15 seconds.
Now, if I could just find a good laser printer which could print
on a roll of paper, I would be happy. :-)

Yes, that was the ONE advantage of the Versatec, but the rest of
it was a DIS-advantage.

Well, I have one app that NEEDS Linux, the EMC machine tool
control.


Maybe or maybe not. Solaris is supposed to be a real-time OS to
start with, and with a PCI version of the Servo-To-Go card it should be
possible to bring it up on any of the Ultra systems (which all have PCI
slots instead of Sbus.)
There IS no PCI version of the Servo-to-Go card. Strictly ISA,
and thus woefully obsolete. My hardware runs on an IEEE-1284
capable parallel port. Is the real time compatible with rtai?
I've been sort of considering trying that with
my Bridgeport. (The linux seems to not be stable with my current
hardware, and I've never finished the conversion of the machine -- which
started life as a Bridgeport Series-I BOSS-3 running on an old quad-wide
LSI-11. The system had a massive case of electronic Altzheimer's, and
would forget what it was doing within fifteen seconds of being reset.
Usually, that was not enough time to load a tiny progrma to test it. :-)

Bridgeport never got the hang of cooling electronics, all their
gear cooked chips. They also built their own, very bad, power
supplies. I know garage hardware hackers who have no formal
training in electronics who build MUCH better gear than the old
BOSS systems. Not a whole lot of LSI-11's around that still work.
I've been converting the controller to EMC based, and the
steppers to servo motors, with one serious hangup. The servos are a lot
longer than the original steppers.
That is a common issue.
The Y-axis stepper fit into a recess
in the knee, and the servo can't fit. I've got to build an alternate
motor mount/belt guard which slopes at a 45 degree angle down to the
right, so the motor winds up beside the knee instead of trying to stab
through the knee's jackscrew. :-) And to do this properly, I really need
welding capability -- which I do not yet have. Or I need to get the
motor mount assembly from a later Bridgeport -- from after *they* moved
to servos.

I need some of the same parts. I have a 1938 round-ram
Bridgeport that I converted to CNC, but it still has the short
knee from those days. I pcked up a later BOSS knee and saddle
that have been stripped, and have been accumulating bits for it,
to eventually put it on the old machine. I found a new Y
ballscrew on eBay, but haven't come up with an X screw, yet.
And, I need all the bearing mounts/belt housings, etc.
Not a big rush, as it still has a lot of scraping to do before
it is ready to go on.

Jon

Ecnerwal wrote:

Sounds interesting. I for one would be interested to hear more about it,
if it's not too painful to discuss.
--Ping me offlist and I'll regale you with details of how not to get
rich, heh.

--
"Steamboat Ed" Haas : Whatever happened
Hacking the Trailing Edge! : to Tom Nelson?
www.nmpproducts.com
---Decks a-wash in a sea of words---

On 2007-11-27, Jon Elson wrote:
DoN. Nichols wrote:

[ ... ]

Hmm ... HP made a nice front-loading self-threading tape drive
(which we had with the Solbournes), which was SCSI interface. And I've

[ ... ]

There were two front-loading 9-track drives. i don't think
either of them were very good, but the Digi-Data was certainly
one of the worst things I've ever seen. It could have amazing
disasters during threading, and I suspect any tape in the drive
when it faults or loses power is trash, as it will simply slide
off the hub onto the bottom of the drive when tension is lost.

Ouch! The HP was quite forgiving -- but there were flanges on
the take-up hub in that machine, so it would have been better once it
got threaded.

[ ... ]

I wonder what the technology which It used was? It looked sort
of like a raster scanned photo buildup. Was it wet or dry processed?

Very wet. There was a big bottle of toner, which had something
like laser toner suspended in some kind of solvent that smelled
a little like paint thinner, a little like gasoline. Just
writing about it, I can smell the stuff now! Yucck!

O.K. Glad that I didn't try for one at the on-post surplus
sales. For all I know, it came from the computer center where I used it
that once -- but since it was a mainframe, I had to use it at a
distance. :-)

[ ... ]

Now, if I could just find a good laser printer which could print
on a roll of paper, I would be happy. :-)

Yes, that was the ONE advantage of the Versatec, but the rest of
it was a DIS-advantage.

Just as it is the one advantage of a drum plotter which I have.
Resolution is 0.010", almost direct drive of stepper motors from the
computer, something like a 15 V input signal, even though it was low
current. It required a special wire-wrapped interface from my SWTP
6809.

The advantage of that roll paper feed was that I could directly
plot the fret positions for a stringed instrument.

[ ... ]

Maybe or maybe not. Solaris is supposed to be a real-time OS to
start with, and with a PCI version of the Servo-To-Go card it should be
possible to bring it up on any of the Ultra systems (which all have PCI
slots instead of Sbus.)
There IS no PCI version of the Servo-to-Go card. Strictly ISA,
and thus woefully obsolete.

So I see after visiting their web site. There is simply the
original (which I have) and the second version, which is still ISA.

My hardware runs on an IEEE-1284
capable parallel port. Is the real time compatible with rtai?

RTAI? What is that? The later Suns (including my SB-1000s)
have a fully programmable parallel port, once you find the right termio
signals to send to the driver. I would Google for RTAI, but the time is
getting too close to go to the CAMS (Chesapeake Area Metalworking
Society) meeting here in Virginia. (Alternate months are in VA and MD,
and only the VA one is close enough to be really reasonable with a SUV
which takes lots of fuel to carry the show-and-tell metalworking things
to the meeting. :-)

I've been sort of considering trying that with
my Bridgeport. (The linux seems to not be stable with my current
hardware, and I've never finished the conversion of the machine -- which
started life as a Bridgeport Series-I BOSS-3 running on an old quad-wide
LSI-11. The system had a massive case of electronic Altzheimer's, and
would forget what it was doing within fifteen seconds of being reset.
Usually, that was not enough time to load a tiny progrma to test it. :-)

Bridgeport never got the hang of cooling electronics, all their
gear cooked chips. They also built their own, very bad, power
supplies. I know garage hardware hackers who have no formal
training in electronics who build MUCH better gear than the old
BOSS systems. Not a whole lot of LSI-11's around that still work.

O.K. I've got three of them -- but the rest of the system
locked up regularly. Actually -- the only time it behaved normally was
when it was too hot in the shop for *me* to work without drowning the
machine is salty sweat. :-(

I've been converting the controller to EMC based, and the
steppers to servo motors, with one serious hangup. The servos are a lot
longer than the original steppers.
That is a common issue.
The Y-axis stepper fit into a recess
in the knee, and the servo can't fit. I've got to build an alternate
motor mount/belt guard which slopes at a 45 degree angle down to the
right, so the motor winds up beside the knee instead of trying to stab
through the knee's jackscrew. :-) And to do this properly, I really need
welding capability -- which I do not yet have. Or I need to get the
motor mount assembly from a later Bridgeport -- from after *they* moved
to servos.

I need some of the same parts. I have a 1938 round-ram
Bridgeport that I converted to CNC, but it still has the short
knee from those days. I pcked up a later BOSS knee and saddle
that have been stripped, and have been accumulating bits for it,
to eventually put it on the old machine. I found a new Y
ballscrew on eBay, but haven't come up with an X screw, yet.

Do you know that the X-axis ballscrew does not turn? It is
rigidly mounted to the right-hand end of the table, and the ball *nut* is
what is turned between two matched bearings. The advantages a

1) The leadscrew cannot whip with a quick move.

2) The ball screw cover is simpler -- a telescoping flat spring
wound around the ballscrew.

And do you have the Series-I head for the CNC version? The ball
screw for that is hollow -- surrounding the quill, with the ball nut
rotating around that, so the thrust is truly on axis.

And, I need all the bearing mounts/belt housings, etc.
Not a big rush, as it still has a lot of scraping to do before
it is ready to go on.

Just as I don't have a great hurry here. I've got a nice
Nichols horizontal mill with a vertical head which works nicely for
manual milling.

Enjoy,
DoN.

--
Email: | Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564
(too) near Washington D.C. | http://www.d-and-d.com/dnichols/DoN.html
--- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---

DoN. Nichols wrote:
Jon Elson wrote :

Just as it is the one advantage of a drum plotter which I have.
Resolution is 0.010", almost direct drive of stepper motors from the
computer, something like a 15 V input signal, even though it was low
current. It required a special wire-wrapped interface from my SWTP
6809.

I still have a Calcomp 1076C plotter, takes up to size E paper,
has servos that give 3 G accel and 50+ IPS motion. Mostly it
just tears paper and wrecks $30 ceramic pen nibs (probably
because I don't know how to set it up right.) I haven't turned
it on in 5+ years, but being high-quality gear it most likely
would fire right up if I did.

I did just get a color laser printer off the loading dock at
work, where people set cast-offs that somebody may want. It
almost worked, and with a little web searching, I found there's
a little damper pad that works out of position and fouls up the
pull-in time of a solenoid. Difficult to get to, but insanely
easy to fix once you have it apart. Prints incredibly good
color output.
The advantage of that roll paper feed was that I could directly
plot the fret positions for a stringed instrument.

A friend of mine did exactly the same on an ancient Calcomp at
the Wash Univ. data center some 30+ years ago.
[ ... ]


Maybe or maybe not. Solaris is supposed to be a real-time OS to
start with, and with a PCI version of the Servo-To-Go card it should be
possible to bring it up on any of the Ultra systems (which all have PCI
slots instead of Sbus.)

There IS no PCI version of the Servo-to-Go card. Strictly ISA,
and thus woefully obsolete.


So I see after visiting their web site. There is simply the
original (which I have) and the second version, which is still ISA.

Yes, can't imagine they sell a whole bunch of them anymore.

My hardware runs on an IEEE-1284
capable parallel port. Is the real time compatible with rtai?


RTAI? What is that?
Rtai is the current real time "extension" for Linux. It
actually runs above the Linux kernel, and makes Linux the lowest
priority task. The RT programs run as loadable kernel modules,
and run with kernel privileges, and also kernel restrictions.
The later Suns (including my SB-1000s)
have a fully programmable parallel port, once you find the right termio
signals to send to the driver.
The advantage of the IEEE-1284 (EPP) mode of the PC parallel
port is it does all the handshaking between the PC CPU and the
device(s) on the parallel port in hardware, so you can read or
write a register on the device with a single CPU instruction,
and do single-byte transfers at the rate of every 800 ns or so.

Do you know that the X-axis ballscrew does not turn?
Yes, and I've actually got a screw made like that from some
other machine, but it is obviously not a Bridgeport BOSS part.
It actually would work pretty well, and I may use it, but I will
have to machine all the attachment hardware to use it. I'm
still deciding whether that screw should go on the mill or the
lathe.
And do you have the Series-I head for the CNC version? The ball
screw for that is hollow -- surrounding the quill, with the ball nut
rotating around that, so the thrust is truly on axis.

No, I do not have this. I have a usable 1J head that I have
added a ballscrew assembly to the front of the housing, as close
to the quill as I can get it. It has a little flex in the
linkage, but the backlash is barely over .001", so I am mostly
satisfied with it. You can see my insane hack job of a retrofit
http://jelinux.pico-systems.com/CNCconv.html

Jon

On 2007-11-28, Jon Elson wrote:
DoN. Nichols wrote:
Jon Elson wrote :

Just as it is the one advantage of a drum plotter which I have.
Resolution is 0.010", almost direct drive of stepper motors from the
computer, something like a 15 V input signal, even though it was low
current. It required a special wire-wrapped interface from my SWTP
6809.

I still have a Calcomp 1076C plotter,

Yep! Calcomp was the brand.

takes up to size E paper,
has servos that give 3 G accel and 50+ IPS motion. Mostly it
just tears paper and wrecks $30 ceramic pen nibs (probably
because I don't know how to set it up right.) I haven't turned
it on in 5+ years, but being high-quality gear it most likely
would fire right up if I did.

Hmm ... a much faster one than what I have. The pitch of the
steppers is in the mid-low audio region -- 100 Hz, IIRC.

I did just get a color laser printer off the loading dock at
work, where people set cast-offs that somebody may want. It
almost worked, and with a little web searching, I found there's
a little damper pad that works out of position and fouls up the
pull-in time of a solenoid. Difficult to get to, but insanely
easy to fix once you have it apart. Prints incredibly good
color output.

Nice! I've got an HP LaserJet 5C which has died as a result of
a series of power glitches when a tree was blowing into the big
three-phase wiring at the head of the block -- which I can't get as
three phase in the house here. :-(

It appears to have blown a fuse -- but I can't find a fuse
anywhere accessible from the outside, I guess that I'll have to rip it
apart, which is going to need some help moving it to where I can work on
it. Too little access from any side but the front where it is.

Or -- get a more recent laser printer -- though the LaserJet 4+
still works beautifully.

The advantage of that roll paper feed was that I could directly
plot the fret positions for a stringed instrument.

A friend of mine did exactly the same on an ancient Calcomp at
the Wash Univ. data center some 30+ years ago.

Probably the same model of Calcomp. It was a three digit
starting with 8 (the paper roll width in inches, IIRC). There was also
a three-foot wide one at work.

[ ... ]

My hardware runs on an IEEE-1284
capable parallel port. Is the real time compatible with rtai?


RTAI? What is that?
Rtai is the current real time "extension" for Linux. It
actually runs above the Linux kernel, and makes Linux the lowest
priority task. The RT programs run as loadable kernel modules,
and run with kernel privileges, and also kernel restrictions.

Hmm -- I don't know, to be honest. I seem to remember that the
EMC project has gone through about three real-time mods to Linux over
time, and what you are describing sounds like the first.

The later Suns (including my SB-1000s)
have a fully programmable parallel port, once you find the right termio
signals to send to the driver.

The advantage of the IEEE-1284 (EPP) mode of the PC parallel
port is it does all the handshaking between the PC CPU and the
device(s) on the parallel port in hardware, so you can read or
write a register on the device with a single CPU instruction,
and do single-byte transfers at the rate of every 800 ns or so.

O.K. I've not tried low-level driving the parallel port on
these -- I've pretty much ignored it.

What I would like would be a small box which would hang on the
ethernet and translate packets to what is needed for the controller
hardware.

Do you know that the X-axis ballscrew does not turn?

Yes, and I've actually got a screw made like that from some
other machine, but it is obviously not a Bridgeport BOSS part.
It actually would work pretty well, and I may use it, but I will
have to machine all the attachment hardware to use it. I'm
still deciding whether that screw should go on the mill or the
lathe.

O.K.

And do you have the Series-I head for the CNC version? The ball
screw for that is hollow -- surrounding the quill, with the ball nut
rotating around that, so the thrust is truly on axis.

No, I do not have this. I have a usable 1J head that I have
added a ballscrew assembly to the front of the housing, as close
to the quill as I can get it. It has a little flex in the
linkage, but the backlash is barely over .001",

That sounds like the conversion which Anilam hung on a Taiwanese
clone of the Bridgeport which we had at work. The main worry was that
the off-center thrust would accelerate wear of the quill in the head
casting -- especially with the number of cycles possible with CNC.

so I am mostly
satisfied with it. You can see my insane hack job of a retrofit
http://jelinux.pico-systems.com/CNCconv.html

O.K. That looks reasonably workable.

You know that the EMC project has moved outside of NIST now, and
is under the URL of www.linuxcnc.org IIRC.

Interestingly enough, this has drifted back *on* topic -- still
without the "Subject: " header changing, however. :-)

Enjoy,
DoN.

--
Email: | Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564
(too) near Washington D.C. | http://www.d-and-d.com/dnichols/DoN.html
--- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---

1) I tried to soundproof a door by filling it with sand.
But the door flew off the roof of my car on the way back from the sand
lot, and got a leak.

When ever the door was opened or closed, it left an arc shaped trail of
sand on the floor.

2) I tried to dash mount an oil pressure gauge in my car.

When I tried to drive to work, it shot hot oil in my lap.

Ignoramus689 wrote:
What was the most ill-conceived, unsuccessful, and worthless/expensive
DIY style project that you undertook (I would say without counting any
injuries as they could outweigh everything else)?

I guess my 'worst' one for running out of control was when I saw the
'Jamie should use safety glasses because hammers can chip' episode of
mythbusters. They said they couldn't chip, and did just about everything
wrong with that episode. So I spent the next couple of months getting a
hammer hitting rig set up, had to buy a 1/3rd motor, found out it was too
weak to run with a router speed control. Then I got an inverter rated 1
hp motor, and a VFD. Found out that was too weak too. Got a 3 HP rated
VFD and a 2 HP motor (in case the 2 HP motor was too weak, I could get a 3
HP motor without having to get a new VFD), and finally got the rig
working. Had to redesign and rebuild the rig about 3-4 times as well.
Finally got some good video of chips flying off the hammer faces and got
the video ready to send in. Then, I got invited by somebody who knew
about my project to be on a panel with 2 of the build team at a nearby
convention. And 3 days before the convention, they had the revisit of
this 'myth' broadcast. Well, they fixed about 90% of their mistakes.
However appearntly they had shifted the goalposts from chip/crack/break to
shatter/explode.

Oh well, I was still invited to be on the panel, so I went anyway. Turns
out that my guest pass for the convention was not one that would let me
into the green room, as was implied by the staff member who invited me.
Nice and embarassing there. And when the panel rolled around, apparently
they changed the format, so that I and the other non-mythbuster guest just
got to stand around and say nothing for the entire 2 hours.

So...pretty much a complete waste. I was able to use the VFD/motor to
power my KMG grinder when I got it, so I guess it wasn't a 'complete'
waste. Oh, and I still have the video, but I'm wondering if I should even
bother putting it on Youtube.

Clark Magnuson wrote:
1) I tried to soundproof a door by filling it with sand.
But the door flew off the roof of my car on the way back from the sand
lot, and got a leak.

When ever the door was opened or closed, it left an arc shaped trail of
sand on the floor.

2) I tried to dash mount an oil pressure gauge in my car.

When I tried to drive to work, it shot hot oil in my lap.

It could have been worse.

A cow-orker of mine dash-mounted an oil
pressure gauge and laced the poly tubing
next to the exhaust manifold. The car
went into afterburner on the freeway at
70 mph.

On 2007-11-29, Jim Stewart wrote:
A cow-orker of mine dash-mounted an oil
pressure gauge and laced the poly tubing
next to the exhaust manifold. The car
went into afterburner on the freeway at
70 mph.

I think that I saw his car on I-65, it ran, but smoked like a smoke
grenade.

i

Ignoramus9168 wrote:
On 2007-11-29, Jim Stewart wrote:
A cow-orker of mine dash-mounted an oil
pressure gauge and laced the poly tubing
next to the exhaust manifold. The car
went into afterburner on the freeway at
70 mph.

I think that I saw his car on I-65, it ran, but smoked like a smoke
grenade.

Don't think so. Flames come out of afterburners.

On Thu, 29 Nov 2007 10:05:14 -0800, Jim Stewart
wrote:

Clark Magnuson wrote:
1) I tried to soundproof a door by filling it with sand.
But the door flew off the roof of my car on the way back from the sand
lot, and got a leak.

When ever the door was opened or closed, it left an arc shaped trail of
sand on the floor.

2) I tried to dash mount an oil pressure gauge in my car.

When I tried to drive to work, it shot hot oil in my lap.

It could have been worse.

A cow-orker of mine dash-mounted an oil
pressure gauge and laced the poly tubing
next to the exhaust manifold. The car
went into afterburner on the freeway at
70 mph.


As a wee small bairn...I too (nearly) torched a Nash Rambler by
routing a plastic oil line too near something hot.

The cigarette lighter

When the line let loose...it came undone from under the dash, and
sprayed hot oil all across my private regions.

Deep fried cajones...as it were...

Gunner

On Dec 2, 9:50 pm, Gunner wrote:
On Thu, 29 Nov 2007 10:05:14 -0800, Jim Stewart
wrote:





Clark Magnuson wrote:
1) I tried to soundproof a door by filling it with sand.
But the door flew off the roof of my car on the way back from the sand
lot, and got a leak.

When ever the door was opened or closed, it left an arc shaped trail of
sand on the floor.

2) I tried to dash mount an oil pressure gauge in my car.

When I tried to drive to work, it shot hot oil in my lap.

It could have been worse.

A cow-orker of mine dash-mounted an oil
pressure gauge and laced the poly tubing
next to the exhaust manifold. The car
went into afterburner on the freeway at
70 mph.

As a wee small bairn...I too (nearly) torched a Nash Rambler by
routing a plastic oil line too near something hot.

The cigarette lighter

When the line let loose...it came undone from under the dash, and
sprayed hot oil all across my private regions.

Deep fried cajones...as it were...

Gunner- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Happened to a friend of mine in college. Plastic tube popped off the
pressure gage. Lubed up the back of the dash and floor real well.
Karl