I'm thinking about switching back to EMC (EMC2)
EMC but had problems with the electronics (but no fault with EMC)
Through trying to get the electronics straightened out, I wound up
using DeskCNC, then wound up putting it all in storage for a while.
Recently I loaded up EMC2 and was quite impressed with it.
So now I'm thinking about switching back to EMC.
I would need to rebuild the current computer since
what I have now is older hardware (old p3 600)
The main questions I have are:
How stable is the current EMC2 (on Ubuntu 10.04)?
What motherboard would you suggest purchasing to ensure EMC runs well?
Thank you
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EMC2 version 2.4.7 is very polished and stable. Version 2.5 is in the wings waiting for some cleanup work to be done.
In case you missed it there are Sherline sample configs that you can copy and get you up and running fast.
I assume steppers, what kind of drives do you have?
John
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I was pleasantly surprised to see how far EMC has come
I'm a fan of Linux and open source so I'd rather go with EMC over what I have
The driver is currently an older Xylotex Unipolar driver board
Though I'm considering upgrading to a Gecko g540 driver.
I will have to load up the Live CD and see it it works on the current PC.
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I would need to rebuild the current computer since
what I have now is older hardware (old p3 600)
Old is not necessarily bad where EMC2 is concerned. Try both LiveCDs (10.04 and 8.04) and see if they work and give decent latency.
You can probably just start up the Sherline sample config on each one, and see how it goes.
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John
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Harry_Y wrote:
I would need to rebuild the current computer since
what I have now is older hardware (old p3 600)
Old is not necessarily bad where EMC2 is concerned. Try both LiveCDs (10.04 and 8.04) and see if they work and give decent latency.
You can probably just start up the Sherline sample config on each one, and see how it goes.
It did not seem to like the 10.04 one, I'm pulling down 8.04 now
BTW I run Ubunti 10.04 as my main OS at home
Though I'm a Windows Server Admin for my day job
I'm not a real fan of Windows for critical apps
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The new Mesa 5i25 can drive the G540 directly and is really cost effective and neat way to do that. Iirc there is a xylotex config too...
John
Interesting
is it basically a fully configurable I/O card?
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I don't understand your question.
www.mesanet.com/pdf/parallel/5i25man.pdf
John
From what i am reading it is basically an I/O card that is fully configurable
like a Parallel port only better
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From what i am reading it is basically an I/O card that is fully configurable
like a Parallel port only better
It is more and less, than that.
It does on-board step-generation, PWM generation and encoder counting, all up to MHz frequencies, like the other Mesa cards.
So, it can emulate what a parallel port would look like connected to a computer with 100nS latency (20,000nS is more usual).
It can also be configured to be individual IO lines, or to connect to various daughter cards (such as the 32 + 16 GPIO, encoder, stepper, spindle-drive 7i76)
However, Unlike the other Mesa FPGA cards it is not possible to switch the onboard configuration file from within EMC2. (You can set pins to be inputs and outputs, but not change which stepgen/encoder/pwm modules are loaded)
One available configuration will wire direct 1:1 to a Gecko G540 though.
There are two ports on the board, (the second is on a header and needs a scond backplate) you can have different configs on each port
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