Beginner with LinuxCNC and Roland EGX-300, looking for a few pointers

Hello,

I'm a newcomer to LinuxCNC. I have (thanks to help from the forum) managed to build LinuxCNC (for Run In Place) on an RT-enabled kernel, and have run the tests, and they pass. That's where I'm at so far.

I've started looking at the extensive documentation at LinuxCNCKnowledgeBase, and it's immense. But I'm technically minded, and will read up anything, I was just hoping for some quick pointers into the areas I should focus on.

Anyone have a few pointers where I should start, given my use-case (which is to use an EGX-300, for engraving from a vector file (I don't mind what format for now).

I have a serial port and parallel port (USB-to-RS232 and USB-to-Centronics) since I didn't know which one would be supported by Linux and LinuxCNC. The ports are reported as:
Bus 001 Device 008: ID 067b:23a3 Prolific Technology, Inc. ATEN Serial Bridge
Bus 001 Device 007: ID 067b:2305 Prolific Technology, Inc. PL2305 Parallel Port

Thanks for any help.
 

Hi,
Thanks for the reply! I'm using 'run in place' because I needed a Linux kernel with some extra (unrelated) patches.
Does LinuxCNC not work at all with USB to Serial or USB to parallel converters, or does it work but poorly?
I assumed that since the EGX-300 uses a high-level language (HPGL-like), and doesn't require direct pulses to stepper motors, that perhaps a lower performance solution like USB-to-Serial or USB-to-Parallel might be adequate. But if LinuxCNC does not function with then at all, then I'll have to re-think things.
I could control the EGX-300 without LinuxCNC, but I had hoped to use it as a learning opportunity, i.e. I'd rather get it running with LinuxCNC than without.

Thanks for the advice! I see; in that case, I'll take a two-track approach. I'll work with either C/C++ or Python to program the machine in the HPGL-like format that it uses, whilst also obtaining a PC with PCIe card slot, so I can have a small testbed for learning LinuxCNC, and switch to that once I'm familiar with it.
After some googling, I can see that a "Lenovo P320 Tiny" (I want an ideally small form-factor machine) has a PCIe slot, and it's cheap on ebay, so I'll probably pick that up (unless there are better recommendations for a small, low-cost PC), plus PCIe cards for serial and parallel so I can try them both out.
I'm curious too what's inside the EXG-300, but it's not at the location where I an currently, so I can't take a screwdriver to it just yet : ) But ideally I'd just like to use it as a black box and apply the HPGL-like commands (known as CAMM-GL in Roland speak) via LinuxCNC, and learn about suitable stepper/spindle driver boards over time.

Hi!
I am working on two projects a Roland camm 1 and a LKPF protomat 60C which speaks HPGL. I am wonding if you ended up using Linuxcnc and how this works for you?

Best regards,
Adrian