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CNC software for an industrial polyester foam cutterit allows you to cut out any shapes by controlling the cutting tool in 3 dimensions. It imports data from files in PLT/HGPL format as well as G-code, allows them to be edited, and controls the machine, while also controlling the angle of inclination of the cutting blade. It allows the machine to be stopped at any moment, manually as well as by means of 4 alarm signals (sensors), and arbitrary changes of working parameters. It also includes a simulation which checks whether the machine's cutting paths do not intersect. The screenshot shows the program while running a script for cutting out a small eagle figure from a block of polyester foam.. | |
First version of the programdates back to the turn of the century and was written in the Borland C++ Builder 6.0 environment. The program controlled the cutter's stepper motors directly, sending control pulses to them through the LPT port. It was a simple and elegant solution, which, as time showed, had only one drawback: fewer and fewer laptops had an LPT port, and all attempts to get around this problem with various USB-LPT adapters failed because of the drastically poor quality of the signal they generated ... |
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Controller based on a pic18f4550 processor.The new version of the program was already built using .NET technology, in C#. The main difference, however, was the way the program controls the stepper motors of the device. Since LPT ports had run out, the manufacturer of the cutter decided to build a controller based on a pic18f4550 processor, which took over control of the stepper motors. The program running on the PC only imports data from G-code, PLT or HGPL files and allows you to modify them, then sends the data to the controller as successive G-code steps to execute. The program in C running on the controller calculates the number of steps (along both axes) needed to carry out a given movement, and the angle at which the cutting blade should be set, and then controls the cutter's stepper motors. The main advantage of this solution is that the cutter can work with any computer equipped with a USB interface. Moreover, any program that can send individual lines of a G-code file as text over the USB protocol can control it. |
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