PC hardware to run LinxCNC
Hi John,
I meant to put in where I was from in my initial post, but got distracted and forgot
. My apologies!
I'm inclined to use Campbell board since I have it already, although i can't remember what I paid for it; however, five or so years ago the $Oz was a lot lower wrt the $US than it is currently (that appears to be changing again, though).
I did in fact order a BOX525DW from a crowd here in Sydney this afternoon, for AU$90 + postage, having been seduced by the idea of having the computer in the same box as the CNC controls - and had in fact been recenlty, albeit vaguely toying with the idea of doing just that, although I didn't then quite know how I was going to go about. Thanks to you people, I now do.
That just leaves a few things like memory and psu that I will take my time over. Likewise, i'll read throughthe 5i25's manual, which I downloaded from Mesa's website and have a bit of a think. My current impression is that it might be better at handling sigal timing than the onboard lpt1, but I could be wrong there.
Cheers,
Alex.
Indeed the 5i25 will be faster than the parallel port, the question is will you be able to use the speed? The low latency of the 525 will give some nice step rates. I'd get 525 up and running with your current hardware and see if software step generation is fast enough for your needs, if not you can add the 5i25.
IIRC the 525 takes special memory like laptop or something I forget exactly now.
John
To minimize heat and power and to maximize reliability, you may want to consider using a diskless, headless setup. I intend to operate this way when I do shift to an Atom. I assume that you have a capable Linux computer somewhere in your house. Set it up as a boot server and as an NFS server, and then set the Atom up to use PXE boot and NFS. Also set the Atom up as a VNC server (or other remote desktop of your choice.) Run this entire mess from a laptop that you can take into your shop and connect via wifi to your LAN.
I also have delusions of using my smartphone or Kindle fire as a pendant. Same as a laptop but possibly with a alternate remote desktop app and using a simplified UI in the LinuxCNC machine.
Hi arch dude,
I really like the idea of an SSD - I'm currently looking at what these wee beasties cost - I can obtain, for e.g., a Corsair 60GB Force Series 3 SSD for AU$85, which would seem way more than enough for this setup, given that my Parallels Ubuntu/LinuxCNC2.5 image on my Mac is just shy of 3 GB (I installed it for fun
. Speaking of running headless, back when I first go the hardware, I ran EMC2 from the other end of the house via Gbit ethernet in an xterm on the Mac, the (now defunct) PC being in the workshop. OS X having UNIX underpinnings (apparently "UNIX "Certified"" - for whatever worth that is, I don't know) helps in that respect. THe ocre of the system is FreeBSD, I think - but don't quote me. At any rate, EMC2 worked like a charm in the xterm so I was able to get a feel for it, although I've probably forgotten most of it, hence the Parallels installation.Whether I can set the iMac up as a boot server without adding the abysmal, lobotomised "Lion "Server"", I'll have to investigate. I might be able to get he old G5 box running SnowLeopard to do that. Or install a PowerPC version of Linux on that
. That's something that I ve been meaning to try out for years and never had the real motivation until now!I like the idea of a smartphone pendant!
Cheers,
Alex.
Useful to know, thanks
.Cheers,
Alex.
