Zenbot/Gecko/LinuxCNC?

@Andy

THX!

You expressed in clear polite words what are my feelings when i read that thread.

I'm only a consumer but dislike if people like you and all the other lcnc developers work hard for free and get critisized for their " donations".

Ist's a free world, nobody is forced to take opensource !!!

m5c
Mike

Here's what I'll be using on UCCNC:

www.thecncwoodworker.com/2017.html

I really like the probing and jogging flyout, which you can see in one of the videos.

BTW, there is something about the Axis interface that is appealing. The "basic look". But it isn't tailored towards the way I work (and I think the way a lot of people work, IMO). For me, jogging and probing and the XYZ displays are completely central to the process. That's where all the work is. I don't care about offsets so I don't know why there is a display for that. Getting the XYZ of the model aligned with the XYZ on the actual stock or part is the crux of the matter. The machine path display is a nice reality check, but I preview all my machine paths in Fusion 360 on the design computer.

My little "jogging" screen isn't quite what it appears to be. We use it for making incremental shifts to the work coordinate system, to adjust the centering and carving depth of the wood carving we do on the work piece. They do not actually move the machine at all, just the offsets. I should have posted a screen shot of the GladeVCP that has probing on it (for tool height adjustment). When I first set up the tool probing routine the machine operators said that seems like its more work than it's worth and that they will probably keep using the old fashion way of using feeler gauges to set the depth. But now that they have it, they use it all the time, and are checking the depth before starting a run, when before they would not have bothered checking the depth and just made a test run to check if the depth needed adjusted. And it wasn't long before they asked if it could be added to other machines.

@andypugh

Wow, that probing tab is really slick! Pretty much the same as the flyout tab on the screen link I sent. So exactly what do you have to do to activate it? Add a better XYZ display with an obvious indication of which coordinate system is being displayed and Axis would pretty much do it for me. Certainly a game changer. Gmoccapy would no longer be necessary.

I agree that keyboard jogging is fine, preferable to buttons actually. But I would like the jog step size to be displayed BIG as well as a way to cycle through jog step sizes with the keyboard. Accidentally having the wrong step size and you can break tools. I will buy an MPG eventually, but first things first

You can down load the source code here,
github.com/verser-git/probe_screen

And the instructions for installing it are there as well. (I've not tried to install it, so can't comment on how good the instructions are.)

I started thinking about trying to get this to work. When I thought about loading that webpage on the laptop running the LinuxCNC ISO, I quickly realized that the ISO seems to have no drivers for my wireless or wired ethernet hardware. Which brings back memories of searching for HW drivers for Linux a few years ago. Not pleasant memories.

I need internet access on that laptop (Toshiba Satellite P55), so unless there is some really easy way to find and install the drivers, I guess I'm back to being back to Windows. Pity.

If you have a network port on your laptop, what happens if your laptop is connected to a wired network when you boot? I would expect it to find it without any driver issues.
Can't you just download the files from Windows onto a USB stick and mount it in Linux?

Laptops, in general are a pain with Linux. And wireless is a similar problem, and touchscreens are usually difficult to get working. But These are general Linux problems and have nothing to do with Linuxcnc.

Since Laptops are generally a bad idea and not recommended for Linuxcnc, With the exception of the 1 time I tried to setup a touchscreen with Linuxcnc, I've never had any hardware support problems with the computers I've used with Linuxcnc.

Yeah, I understand it isn't a LinuxCNC problem.

But the laptop has been working fine with Mach3 and I really don't want to buy another computer. All my other machines are Mac, except for little stuff like the BeagleBone black. Oh well, all indications point in the same direction.

@rodw - ifconfig doesn't even show an adapter present. And on boot it complains that eth0 cannot be found.