Mach CNC software

CNC Control Software is one of the fundamental things you will need to do CNC. The control software is what interprets the G-Code line by line and sends off commands to your machine controller.

Probably the standard in the hobby market is Mach. There are different versions: Mach1, Mach2 and Mach3. Mach is created by a company called Artsoft and has an excellent reputation in the marketplace. The software is easy to use and very powerful. The company also provides great service and is always working on the next generation of product.

I have used a couple other control software packages as well like CNC Pro, TurboCNC and Master. They seem a bit outdated compared to Mach, but serve their purpose and work well.

CNC Water Jet

CNC Water Jet cutting is one way of cutting metals, glass or fabric. It is actually an abrasive cutting process where the cutting happens by eroding the material away. A stream of high-pressure water is focused on the material to make the cut. This jet is positioned and moved using CNC. An abrasive mixture is added to this high-pressure stream of water. The abrasive in the water jet does most of the cutting of the material.

I have found CNC Water Jet cutting to be an interesting process. As soon as you are done you need to dry or protect the recently cut edges. These edges will rust quickly in not handled properly. Before welding these edges usually need to be ground to prevent porosity in the weld.

CNC Tube Bender

CNC Tube benders are a rarity compared with CNC Mills, CNC Lathes and CNC Routers. There aren’t too many hobbyists with one. Most often you will find them in Muffler Shops bending specific exhaust pipes from straight stock. An operator will feed the straight stock in, then the machine will bend it to varying angles at various points along the length.

The hobbyists I have heard of owning these machines usually work with Off Road Vehicles. They use these CNC Tube Benders to make roll cages, push bars, engine guarding and unique racing parts.

See the articles below for more information on CNC Tube Benders.

CNC Motion Control

Motion control is a sub-field of automation, in which the position and/or velocity of machines are controlled using some type of device such as a hydraulic pump, linear actuator, or an electric motor, generally a servo. Motion control is an important part of robotics and CNC machine tools, however it is more complex than in the use of specialized machines, where the kinematics are usually simpler. The latter is often called General Motion Control (GMC). Motion control is widely used in the packaging, printing, textile and assembly industries.

Common control functions include:

• Velocity control.

• Position (point-to-point) control. There are several methods for computing a motion trajectory. These are often based on the velocity profiles of a move such as a triangular profile, trapezoidal profile, or an S-curve profile.

• Pressure or Force control.

• Electronic gearing (or cam profiling). The position of a slave axis is mathematically linked to the position of a master axis. A good example of this would be in a system where two rotating drums turn at a given ration to each other. A more advanced case of electronic gearing is electronic camming. With electronic camming, a slave axis follows a profile that is a function of the master position. This profile need not be linear, but it must be a mathematical function.