Graphical User Interface For The 3 Axis Cnc Milling Machine Computer Science Essay
This paper details the design and development of a Graphical User Interface for the 3-Axis CNC Milling Machine, which was designed in-house for testing and research purposes at the University of the South Pacific. The 3-axis CNC Milling Machine used COM Port terminal software, TeraTerm to communicate with the electronics hardware via RS232 link. The GUI was developed using Microsoft® Visual Basic 2008 Integrated Development Environment. The end result is an interface that is user friendly and is capable of controlling various tasks of the Milling Machine. This paper aims to explain how simple components of Microsoft® Visual Basic 2008 has been used to design a Windows® based user interface which is capable of complete control of CNC milling machine.
Keywords: GUI, Serial Port, CNC, G Codes, STEP NC
1. INTRODUCTION
Over the years a number of methods have been developed to control machine tools. The most widespread used throughout the industry is the G Code language for NC machine tools programming.
