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i'm wondering how transferable the operations are - lets say there's a CNC design that produces something that I want.
What format would these come in - plain text? Or are they too complex to be useful in plaintext. Or is it a proprietary format?
Assuming I got a hold of a particular set of operations - could I hand this over to somebody (with CNC experience) and have them make me the same thing?
gillies-
I suspect you model what you want in 3D modelling CAD / CAM software first. The output of that is then raw code (G-code?) for a CNC devices. I'd be surprised if the code was human readable.
Kinda looks like this, apparently
O1000 T1 M6 (Linear / Feed - Absolute) G0 G90 G40 G21 G17 G94 G80 G54 X-75 Y-75 S500 M3 (Position 6) G43 Z100 H1 Z5 G1 Z-20 F100 X-40 (Position 1) Y40 M8 (Position 2) X40 (Position 3) Y-40 (Position 4) X-75 (Position 5) Y-75 (Position 6) G0 Z100 M30
Howard
My understanding is that machining an item is a series of operations - rotate tool head at x-speed, move tool head x-mm in x-direction, stop, move in y-direction for y-mm etc etc.
CNC machines allow you to enter these operations programatically so the machine will perform them in order, ending with your item (if you got the program right) or some scrap metal (if you got it wrong).
There is an option on some manual mills to attach a CNC controller - if you perform the same series of operations over and over this is a big timesaver.