IAI actuators - SEL-G controllers

I acquired an IAI (Intelligent Actuators, Inc.) system a decade ago - built a 4-axis ‘rolling 3D clay printing station’ (axis #4 is the extruder plunger).
IAI machines of that ilk are not gcode-friendly - are run by embedded commands stored in a 2000-point register.
(Think ,‘program once - spend life applying a bead of adhesive to a door at car factory’ .)
UNLESS…
you write an IAI program that interprets ‘you-defined’ commands from the serial port into IAI move-commands and then write a VB6 program to convert gcode to those ‘you-defined’ commands - and send it from a PC.
Just wondering if anyone else here has a need to get some old IAI thing moving - wants some help - or has IAI actuators/controllers gathering dust they could let go.

IAI machine operation run-through

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Pretty slick that you were able to interface the machine with g-code.

Yeah, it was a mother-of-invention thing, alright. Hm-m-m - that took me back to ‘Zappa days’. :slight_smile: Now the thing has a spot in a pottery studio where a Raspberry PI with Inkscape is used to turn flowers, butterflies, dragonflies and horses into ‘Laser Gcode’ paths - which I then tweak a little (laser ON => Z-axis down) and feed to the PC. Scribing scratches in slabs of clay to be wrapped into cylinders is what it does these days. And puzzles… [Doing a puzzle with the IAI 3D clay printer. - YouTube] .No more flowing out clay until I get a metering pump, using the extruder gun to maintain pressure (oh, and make a pressure sensor for that). Thanks for noticing!

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