Newbe - LinuxCNC or Mach3

caprio
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15 Jan 2016 04:40 #68432 by caprio

Newbe - LinuxCNC or Mach3 was created by caprio

I'm converting my mill to CNC and have a million questions.

I started down the Mach3 track. I've purchased breakout board, power supplies, Stepper drivers and Nema 23 Steppers.

I really prefer Unix over windows so would love to go the LinuxCNC route. I have LinuxCNC installed and working on this
Dell Optiplex 745 (eBay $50). Might have to update the Graphics card. Looks like I need a decent Video with a minimum
of 512MB. Onboard video is a no go for realtime from what I've read.

Is the hardware setup with all the electronics and steppers pretty much the same for LinuxCNC and Mach3?
Can I use my existing electronics with LinuxCNC?

It's a bit overwhelming trying to get started and knowing which path to take. I'll continue to look at the Wiki
and docs but would appreciate any feedback on the subject.

Thank you.

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andypugh
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15 Jan 2016 10:27 #68439 by andypugh

Replied by andypugh on topic Newbe - LinuxCNC or Mach3

caprio wrote:
Onboard video is a no go for realtime from what I've read.

I wish I knew where people are reading this :-)

Every one of my CNC builds has used onboard video.

Is the hardware setup with all the electronics and steppers pretty much the same for LinuxCNC and Mach3?
Can I use my existing electronics with LinuxCNC?

It depends...

If you are using the parallel port then the answer is "Yes". if you have a USB device like a SmoothStepper then the answer is "No" for the SmoothStepper but the rest of the system will be OK and there are LinuxCNC-compatible alternatives to the Smoothstepper using PCI, Ethernet or even EPP ports.

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cncbasher
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15 Jan 2016 10:56 #68440 by cncbasher

Replied by cncbasher on topic Newbe - LinuxCNC or Mach3

as Andy ,
just about all my builds use onboard graphics , in the majority of cases nothing more is needed
although i do find AMD 64 boards & cpu's to work better than Intel's.
i never use Dell ( that might give you a hint ), never had one that would work consistently well .

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Rick G
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16 Jan 2016 07:04 - 16 Jan 2016 07:04 #68516 by Rick G

Replied by Rick G on topic Newbe - LinuxCNC or Mach3

Onboard video is a no go for realtime from what I've read.
I wish I knew where people are reading this Every one of my CNC builds has used onboard video.

4.1.1. On-board video

Disable it and plug in an AGP or PCI video card.

Avoid anything nvidia. Old matrox (millenium, G400, G450 era) work great. Some older ATI work great, not so sure about recent stuff.

wiki.linuxcnc.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?Troubl...oting#On_board_video

All of my machines are currently Dell and running on-board graphics.

Rick G

Last edit: 16 Jan 2016 07:04 by Rick G.

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BigJohnT
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16 Jan 2016 23:09 #68543 by BigJohnT

Replied by BigJohnT on topic Newbe - LinuxCNC or Mach3

caprio wrote:
Onboard video is a no go for realtime from what I've read.

Funny I've never read that anywhere and all my machines use the onboard graphics chip.

JT

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tommylight
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17 Jan 2016 00:07 #68545 by tommylight

Replied by tommylight on topic Newbe - LinuxCNC or Mach3

I am using that same type of DELL with 2X2.8Ghz pentium D, with onboard graphic for over 4 years now, it has been the workhorse for all my experiments with LinuxCnc all that time (including driving servo motors with encoders directly connected to paraport, not much speed, but very usable for some cases, using 100CPR encoders), it has never failed, ever. With 10.04 latency was under 15000, wheezy does 12000 to 13000 consistently. I have plenty of graphic cards (even nvidia quadro) so i can give it a run and report back on latency with ati and nvidia cards, if someone is interested.
Again, i have disabled everything not essential in BIOS, but no other tweaking. The only thing preventing me from running it 24/7 it is the power consumption (lots of power cuts so running on ups batteries is a no go). I use some HP disk-less computers wired directly to 12V car batteries as local servers for anything, even Linuxcnc as the latency on them is magnificent.

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BigJohnT
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17 Jan 2016 11:27 #68581 by BigJohnT

Replied by BigJohnT on topic Newbe - LinuxCNC or Mach3

BigJohnT wrote:

caprio wrote:
Onboard video is a no go for realtime from what I've read.

Funny I've never read that anywhere and all my machines use the onboard graphics chip.

JT

I was enlightened by someone with far more experience with LinuxCNC than me

there was definitely a time where onboard video which shared RAM with the CPU was bad for latency, at least in certain chipsets.
doing an operation like maximizing or opaquely dragging a window could cause multi-ms latencies

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toplakd
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17 Jan 2016 14:50 #68586 by toplakd

Replied by toplakd on topic Newbe - LinuxCNC or Mach3

I started about 5 years ago with demo version of Mach 3.
After two week I tried LinuxCNC and have never looked back.
I have always used onboard graphics cards with latency at about 15000.
Recently I bought some HP DC7900 with E8400 processor, 2 gig ram and onboard graphics.
With Wheezy I get 3500 latency with 12 glxgears windows opened.

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caprio
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17 Jan 2016 17:58 #68605 by caprio

Replied by caprio on topic Newbe - LinuxCNC or Mach3

Thats for all the replies. I think I'm going to go ahead and start with LinuxCNC
rather than Mach3. I'm not using a USB smooth stepper setup so sounds like all
my existing electronics will work ok.

I'll have to read up on the latency issue. So does have a more modern, faster processor
help with latency? I mainly bought the old Dell because I was going the Mach3 route on
Windows XP (yuck!).

Can you guys recommend some good resources on setting up the configuration?

In the meantime I'll be loading back on LinuxCNC and dumping Mach3. LinuxCNC
loaded just fine on the Dell Optiplex.

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Ozcnc
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17 Jan 2016 18:05 #68606 by Ozcnc

Replied by Ozcnc on topic Newbe - LinuxCNC or Mach3

I'm currently using Linuxcnc through parallel port and I would say that it is the best choice I have made.
I previously used Mach3 and I took me a while to get it to run "OK".
Linuxcnc was actually 10 times quicker for me to setup.

Although I don't recommend nvidia in a linux machine I am currently using one with latency around 8000.

Cheers,
Oz

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