But having used both but with sometimes 6 to 8 months or even a year between uses, I can tell you that a slightly automated manual lathe with an ELS is a leap forward in ease of use compared to booting up a PC, running the CNC application and then trying to remember what G-Code/M-Code did what.
I don't find boot up time to be an issue. I walk in the workshop and turn the machine on. By the time I've picked out the stock I'm going to use and decided on what cutter to use the machine's up and running.
As far as remembering the codes, a cheat sheet taped to the machine does wonders. For basic stuff you only need to remember half a dozen G-codes and a few M codes. The sheet can be pretty short. For instance I don't thread that often in the lathe so I have a cheat sheet for thread cutting.
If you want to mix manual/CNC operation you need to know g-code but if you are willing to go purely CAD/CAM you don't need to know g-code at all. A fairly big chunk of my customers only vaguely understand what g-code is. They just load their drawing into SheetCam, set up the paths, load the resultant code into their machine and run it. I very seldom bother manually writing code for the router or plasma.
And that is the misconception voiced all the time by frequent users of CNC systems. Perhaps you remember how to do all that stuff. I don't. So CNC is a leap harder to learn.
If as you say you use the machine that seldom then even using the ELS is probably a re-learning curve. I think most hobbyists who are willing to invest the time and effort to convert a machine or the money to buy one are likely to use it more often than that.
Les _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
