September 2010 – anderswallin.net

EMC and EMC2 references

Someone created a wikipedia page for EMC over here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enhanced_Machine_Controller

The wikipedia-police have immediately put it on the list of pages to be deleted ("unremarkable", "no third party references", "borderline advert", etc.). So I decided to collect some references. It is best to archive them here also, in case the wikipedia page does get deleted.

There should be a report by Rogier Blom called roughly "Design and development of a real time trajectory planner for the Enhanced Machine Controller", but I wasn't able to find that. It's probably the same document as this one (the pdf has chapter 4->): http://emc.cvs.sourceforge.net/viewvc/emc/emc/doc/segmentqueue.pdf?view=log

Please comment below and/or enhance the wikipedia article if you find more references!

Proctor, F. M., and Michaloski, J., "Enhanced Machine Controller Architecture Overview," NIST Internal Report 5331, December 1993. Available online at ftp://129.6.13.104/pub/NISTIR_5331.pdf

Albus, J.S., Lumia, R., “The Enhanced Machine Controller (EMC): An Open Architecture Controller for Machine Tools,” Journal of Manufacturing Review, Vol. 7, No. 3, pp. 278-280, September 1994.

Lumia, "The Enhanced Machine Controller Architecture", 5th International Symposium on Robotics and Manufacturing, Maui, HI, August 14-18, 1994, http://www.nist.gov/customcf/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=820483

Fred Proctor et al., "Simulation and Implementation of an Open Architecture Controller", Simulation, and Control Technologies for Manufacturing, Volume 2596, Proceedings of the SPIE, October 1995, http://www.isd.mel.nist.gov/documents/proctor/sim/sim.html

Fred Proctor, John Michaloski, Will Shackleford, and Sandor Szabo, "Validation of Standard Interfaces for Machine Control", Intelligent Automation and Soft Computing: Trends in Research, Development, and Applications, Volume 2, TSI Press, Albuquerque, NM, 1996, http://www.isd.mel.nist.gov/documents/proctor/isram96/isram96.html

Shackleford and Proctor, "Use of open source distribution for a Machine tool Controller", Sensors and controls for intelligent manufacturing. Conference, Boston MA , 2001 , vol. 4191, pp. 19-30, http://www.isd.mel.nist.gov/documents/shackleford/4191_05.pdf or http://dx.doi.org/10.1117/12.417244

Morar et al., "ON THE POSSIBILITY OF IMPROVING THE WIND GENERATORS", International Conference on Economic Engineering and Manufacturing Systems, Brasov, 25-26 October 2007, http://www.recentonline.ro/021/Morar_L_01a.pdf

Zhang et al., "Development of EMC2 CNC Based on Qt", Manufacturing Technology & Machine Tool, 2008, http://en.cnki.com.cn/Article_en/CJFDTOTAL-ZJYC200802046.htm

Leto et al., "CAD/CAM INTEGRATION FOR NURBS PATH INTERPOLATION ON PC BASED REAL-TIME NUMERICAL CONTROL", 8th INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON ADVANCED MANUFACTURING SYSTEMS AND TECHNOLOGY JUNE 12-13, 2008 UNIVERSITY OF UDINE - ITALY, http://158.110.28.100/amst08/papers/art837759.pdf

Xu et al., "Mechanism and Application of HAL in the EMC2", Modern Manufacturing Technology and Equipment 2009-05, http://en.cnki.com.cn/Article_en/CJFDTOTAL-SDJI200905037.htm

Zivanovic et al., "Methodology for Configuring Desktop 3-axis Parallel Kinematic Machine", FME Transactions (2009) 37, 107-115, http://www.simlab.mas.bg.ac.rs/istrazivanje/biblioteka/publikacije/Transactions_FME/Volume37/3/01_SZivanovic.pdf

Glavonjic et al., "Desktop 3-axis parallel kinematic milling machine", The International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology Volume 46, Numbers 1-4, 51-60 (2009), http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00170-009-2070-3

Staroveski et al., "IMPLEMENTATION OF A LINUX-BASED CNC OPEN CONTROL SYSTEM", 12th INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC CONFERENCE ON PRODUCTION ENGINEERING –CIM2009, Croatian Association of Production Engineering, Zagreb 2009, http://crosbi.znanstvenici.hr/datoteka/421305.209-Staroveski-Brezak-Udiljak-Majetic-CIM_2009.pdf

Li et al., "Control system design and simulation of parallel kinematic machine based on EMC2", Machinery Design & Manufacture 2010-08, http://en.cnki.com.cn/Article_en/CJFDTOTAL-JSYZ201008074.htm

Li et al., "Kinematics Analysis and Control System Design of 6-DOF Parallel Kinematic Machine with Matlab and EMC2" , Advanced Materials Research (Volumes 102 - 104): Digital Design and Manufacturing Technology, 2010, http://dx.doi.org/10.4028/www.scientific.net/AMR.102-104.363

Klancnik et al., "Computer-Based Workpiece Detection on CNC Milling Machine Tools Using Optical Camera and Neural Networks", Advances in Production Engineering & Management 5 (2010) 1, 59-68, http://maja.uni-mb.si/files/apem/APEM5-1-view.pdf

Milutinovic et al., "Reconfigurable robotic machining system controlled and programmed in a machine tool manner", The International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology, 2010, http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00170-010-2888-8

OpenCAMLib from HeeksCNC

I've tried using opencamlib through heekscnc. With a few minor modifications to the ocl_funcs.py script I got it working. Although ocl prints some debug information and a progress bar to the console when run standalone, I couldn't find that window in heekscnc. Even with this small example there are obvious issues with memory management (sometimes 8 Gb wasn't enough!) on either the heekscnc or ocl-side of things (or both!).

On Ubuntu 10.04LTS getting all the bits and pieces, compiling them and installing them was a breeze thanks to this install script. However the GUI feels very "sticky" with the mouse cursor not really going where I want it to go, and the keyboard focus being in surprising places when I want to edit properties. It must be possible to make a GUI that feels good to use with wxgtk, right?

I think currently the inputs and outputs of these two operations, "ZigZag" and "Waterline", are defined in at least three places: ocl itself, the python script ocl_funcs.py, and in the heekscnc c++ GUI code that displays the menus and buttons. Something like introspection or reflection or naked objects would be needed so that a GUI can query the libraries that are present on what operations they offer, what input they need, and what output they produce. If I get my head around some generic-enough GUI ideas I might try writing something myself also. Most probably based on Qt and VTK. In any case the cutting-simulation needs to be driven from a C++ GUI, for performance, I think.

Sunday twentytwo

A nice way to get some variation into the long runs is to take the bus/metro somewhere far and run back home. Google says it's only about 13 km by car to Vuosaari, but if you follow the coast closely it's much longer.

km 2-4: Lots and lots of new houses in Aurinkolahti (Helsinki's own Santa Cruz) before a dive into a green area at km 5-6 (roughly resembling Helsinki central park). Over the vuosaari bridge at 7-8, and into Marjaniemi, an older housing-area around km 8-10. At km 12 you can look at the rich people who are envious of the even richer people, because they have a nicer RIB at the pier just down from their (multi?)million-euro villa. More lots and lots of new houses at "Eastend", a newly built area at km 14-15. The houses are built to look like (large) cottages in the archipelago with a grey weather-beaten-wood look to the outside. However closer inspection reveals it's not wood, just a paneled grey-painted wall. I wonder if admiral Cronstedt would approve? The Iraqi embassy at the 90-degree bend between km 16 and 17 looks as if nothing ever happened, with a well groomed lawn and flowers at the front. Gloves on for the windy kulosaari-bridge at km 18 which offers a nice view into the city center - you can easily count 5-6 churches another half dozen landmarks from here. The view would be even nicer without the architectural concrete-wonders of merihaka at km 20. Just after km 21 the restaurant on tervasaarihas put up a cheesy advert featuring santa-claus and santas-little-helpers. Since the pace was a slow 6:30/km-ish, I decided to quit at 2 hours 20 minutes, or 22 km.

Links - 2010 Sep 23

PCB Milling

We have a 1994 LPKF Protomat S91 PCB mill in the lab for making prototype PCBs. Here it was used to cut a circular part (not a PCB) which was first drawn in CorelDraw, then saved in HPGL format, and then opened in BoardMaster which is the program that controls the mill through a quirky serial protocol. I think the original LPKF design has a solenoid for the up/down z-movement of the tool. The solenoid would become unreliable during a long run, because it was getting very hot, so on our mill it has been replaced with a more reliable pneumatic cylinder. The spindle is a Proxxon hand-tool, and tool changes are manual.

Equatorial wedge – knobs

I turned these knobs from 40mm stock on a manual lathe during the week, and JI cnc-milled them to shape today.

There's still one bit missing from the wedge: the fine-adjustment piece for the azimuth-angle during polar alignment. I'll try to make it on the lathe next, and then everything should be ready for anodizing.