Control board need to interface with SolidWorks

We have inherited a 1987 Denford Triac CNC mill and would like to get it working with a PC. The mill itself is in good working order and we are looking to replace the control board to enable it to interface with SolidWorks on a PC.

Does anyone have suggestions as to what control board we should be looking to invest in - and roughly how much it would cost?

Hi There

My Denford Triac from around that date worked from a PC. I think my control unit was by North Eastern Electronics. I had to use a PC as the tape drive was knackered.

It probably has an RS232 port on it. This would be a 25 pin male D socket. I used the original Denford software that I downloaded from the Denford website which is very basic. I also did hand coding using standard Gcode which worked fine.

The Denford memory is probably very small so you might have to drip feed the program.

You should have no problem outputing a suitable Gcode program.

The best person to talk to is John Stevenson who is on this forum.

regards David

Edited By David Clark 1 on 15/05/2012 13:28:40

Notice how quick off the mark our David is when a femail posts, amazing!!

Hi There

I answered this post as I once had a Triac.

No other reason.

Most posts don't need my attention.

regards david

Edited By David Clark 1 on 15/05/2012 18:43:36

If he responded as quickly when a bloke posts then he might be accused of something entirely different ?

A bit like the sage of Dave Fenners daughter apearing on the cover of MEW 122 that got the flat earth society up in arms / sweat / tizzwas [ not nessesarlily in that order ]

However the same shirt lifters forgot to complain about Cecil Moore in the same pose on MEW 94

Hi John

I have a copy of the magazine with Dave Fenner's Daughter on the cover in my workshop.

It just happens to be one that I did not thow out when I moved as I did not edit that one.

regards David

Solidworks is just a cad package, dont think it can generate gcode. you'd need to use it to model the part you want to make then feed the output into a cam package to generate the gcode used to control the machine.

If your looking to replace the control board you'd then use a controller program like mach3 or EMC to interface the new controls to the PC and feed the gcode into.

Matt

To go from Solidworks you need a SOLID MODEL output to a cam package then a post processor to write your g code

Solidworks will no readily output cam profiles or g code unless you are using an embedded add in

Delcam for solidworks HSM works etc are two i use that sit within the solidworks interface

I use Meshcam to generate tool paths and G code for 3D milling and Sheetcam for 2D and 21/2D work..

These programs take the 3D model you generate in the 3D CAD program in my case Alibre.

Hardly relevant answering this thread, started May 2012, original poster posted once to ask the question and then didn't bother again.

A bit of a seagull post, swoops in, craps and swoops out again.