PC hardware to run LinxCNC

AlexN wrote:

andypugh wrote:

AlexN wrote:

My question is: is it possible to boot the D525 from the SAATA sockets

I don't have a D525, but I do have a D510 and a DN2800MT and they both run nicely off of an SSD in the SATA port.

Excellent! Thanks! .

AN

Hmmm, my reply evaporated. I have built several D510 and D525 systems, all with SSD's, no
problems. Some had SATADOM which are about the size of a USB thumb drive, but they
charge a lot more for them. Larger SATA SSDs look like 2.5" hard drives but very thin.
The CPU doesn't know the difference, and boots fine.

Jon

gera229 wrote:

I have 2 high end PCs that have an SSD connected to the SATA port.

Another tick in the SSD box. Not that I doubt that they work - I was just a bit twitchy about getting the D525 to boot from the SATA port
(s) rather than the USB - stupid really, as SATA traditionally has bootable drives attached.

jmelson wrote:

AlexN wrote:

andypugh wrote:

AlexN wrote:

My question is: is it possible to boot the D525 from the SAATA sockets

I don't have a D525, but I do have a D510 and a DN2800MT and they both run nicely off of an SSD in the SATA port.

Excellent! Thanks! .

AN

Hmmm, my reply evaporated. I have built several D510 and D525 systems, all with SSD's, no
problems. Some had SATADOM which are about the size of a USB thumb drive, but they
charge a lot more for them. Larger SATA SSDs look like 2.5" hard drives but very thin.
The CPU doesn't know the difference, and boots fine.

Jon

The one that I have on order is a 2.5" Intel SATA-II multi layer device

andypugh wrote:

jmelson wrote:

Some had SATADOM which are about the size of a USB thumb drive, but they
charge a lot more for them.

If you shop around, they are available quite cheaply.
www.ebay.co.uk/itm/290726816544
www.ebay.co.uk/itm/320760463565

I have been using one of the second type for the last 18 months for several LinuxCNC compiles per day, so I think that counts as a reasonable stress test.

Indeed .

I had already ordered this - www.techbuy.com.au/p/180340/HDD_SOLID_ST.../SSDSA2CW080G310.asp - before I got your reply. It has a bit better specs than the 40GB that I had originally intended to get, so for "a bit extra" I plumped for this one. Thanks for the heads-up on these, I hadn't seen them in my catalogue trawls. Hmmm...I do have a 167GB USB thumb with OS X Lion on it, I could possibly play about with that at some time in the future if I felt bored...

Regarding the rest of the gear, I dumped the idea of a wifi card after reading ArcEye's caution about such things on gera229's thread . I've got a touchscreen, pico 150W and wall wart in transit (here tomorrow or day after), the RAM and SSD on order, and picked up the 19" rack box this arvo, along with sundry other bits and pieces. The item framing is also on order now too, and should be here by the end of the week.

Speaking of playing about with things, I fired up the G5 Mac with Ubuntu 12 this morning, having pinched the monitor off the wife's machine (she's away at a conference and research, taking the daughter with her as a research assistant ). There's no way in a pink fit that LinuxCNC would work on it since there is no rtai kernel for the PowerPC (as far as I know) and even if there were it would be useless since the G5 doesn't have a parallel port... The intent is to get it running as a server one day.

andypugh wrote:

AlexN wrote:

There's no way in a pink fit that LinuxCNC would work on it since there is no rtai kernel for the PowerPC (as far as I know) and even if there were it would be useless since the G5 doesn't have a parallel port... The intent is to get it running as a server one day.

Actually, I think that PowerPC RTAI development might be ahead of Intel. So you could compile a kernel, and you could compile LinuxCNC.
I think you might fall down on some of the parts of LinuxCNC that use inlined assembler, but even that might actually be abstracted and work OK.

Cool . I'll investigate that and I might give it a go once I've got linux installed on the G5 (I'm currently searching around in my collection of Mac disks for one with the data on it of least value).

Another couple of slightly-related points: cobbled together the wiring for the control box's mains switch the other day, using a latching fused IEC socket and a rocker switch - I've been waiting for an opportunity to attach the toroid to it and read out the outputs (via terminal strips); and I got the gcodetools plugin installed in Inkscape (on X11 on the iMac). Against the day that I actually generate some stuff for piping through to the mill . I'll probably install Inkscape/gcodetools on the G5 once I've sorted that out...

I've been trawling all over the joint trying to find a terminal strip that will allow me to connect the + and - output terminals of my PMDX power board and give me , e.g., 12 individual + and - outputs. I've only found one simple device so far, but that has no ratings for V or I. As to something that might mount on DIN rails, the only thing I've found



- australia.rs-online.com/web/p/products/4132280 - has a massive (relatively speaking) 10 mm^2 input wire, at least according to the specs. And it has a limit of 6 outputs. I feel as though I'm going batty with this apparently simple item. The 12-output version doesn't seem to be available in the RS catalogue (and has an even bigger input wire spec).

It has occurred to me that I could use DIN rail terminal blocks and jumper them together - is this in fact what I actually need to do? Is there another solution (e.g., a soldering iron)?

I think I should attend electrical trade school!

AN.

Thanks Andy . Space is going to be at a premium! I've just been tinkering with the 3U 19" rack case - the 3U is fine, but the width is going to be interesting, cf. your 20" case... The Gecko drives are going to have to go right above the Campbell board on a pair of DIN rails and a 3mm aluminium mounting strip (will double as handy heat sink ). I was going to array them at one end of the case, but there will be no room - unless I junk the Campbell board and install a Mesa 5i25/7i77 on the D525. Or find a bigger case, whichever is cheaper/cheapest!

And that's before I try and squeeze in the terminal blocks.

Here's a snap:


( Here's its direct Flickr link )

AN.