Sunday, October 7, 2012

Recoded host

I haven't made anything yet. That's a bit of a bummer. I decided to re-write the host software in Scala. I wanted to learn the language and there's no better way than to dive in to a real project. Pecking away at examples in a book doesn't lead to strong retention of concepts. I'm a veteran Java coder but I have a feeling Scala will take over soon.

The Java host program was a bit messy. A lot of it was experimental. I had to find out real quick like if I could do a number of things I hadn't done before because I knew I was going to be writing a lot of the code. I want to drive the system from a Mac and there just isn't enough related software for it.

So the Scala rework gave me an opportunity to clean up a lot of it. It's much better organized with a number of interdependencies removed. I also wrote a new "procedure" for facing a block of material. Here's a screen shot of a "box-in face" tool path:


Next up will be procedures to edge the material, also part of "squaring up" the stock. Then a procedure to cut a channel which might also be called a groove, except that it's wide. I also need drilling procedures. I think I'll throw in a rounded-corner procedure for fun. That will give me all I need for the parts I need to mount the USB connector.