composites
17-05-2012, 04:46 PM
Hi, call me Steve or Paddy.
I was apprenticed at Westland Helicopters (1975-1984) and have workwith with Carbon Fibre ever since.
I built my first winding machine, to make tubes, etc. in the late 80’s, initially a 2 axis mechanical beast with chains everywhere but after numerous mod’s and rebuilds the machine is currently 4 axis, computer controlled, capable of winding onto mandrels up to 4 Metres long and/or approx 600mm dia.
Untill recently it was controlled by custom software written in Pascal and 6502 assembler running on a circa 1984 Apple ][.
I now have PC hardware connected and several combinations of Software/Hardware available for trials and have started to program in G-code, etc. but for older jobs I can still use the Apple.
I have also been helping a chap next door to complete the conversion of an Interact 4 to run on Mach3, nearly finished.
I was apprenticed at Westland Helicopters (1975-1984) and have workwith with Carbon Fibre ever since.
I built my first winding machine, to make tubes, etc. in the late 80’s, initially a 2 axis mechanical beast with chains everywhere but after numerous mod’s and rebuilds the machine is currently 4 axis, computer controlled, capable of winding onto mandrels up to 4 Metres long and/or approx 600mm dia.
Untill recently it was controlled by custom software written in Pascal and 6502 assembler running on a circa 1984 Apple ][.
I now have PC hardware connected and several combinations of Software/Hardware available for trials and have started to program in G-code, etc. but for older jobs I can still use the Apple.
I have also been helping a chap next door to complete the conversion of an Interact 4 to run on Mach3, nearly finished.