2.8.1 and 2.9.0 download links are identical. Confused.

Perfect timing Phil, still have to receive my Mesa boards, rewire my table, get set up / connected / working / tested with Linuxcnc, before installing QTPlasmaC so all looking good there.

Rob, great to see you here, and thanks very much for that detailed info. I know that like me you are strapped for time but do you see yourself fully moving to Lcnc. I'm still in shock that I've committed by buying the Mesa boards and have a lot of learning ahead of me but I think it's for the best and I will be glad down the track that I made the move. The initial pull was the PID controlled THC built in to PlasmaC. The THC that I designed and built for UCCNC works fine but it's only a THC up/down signal type and won't be any good for higher XY feedrates on thinner warping sheet. I'm also happy to find out that my closed loop hole marking PCB is not needed as PlasmaC already has the exact same thing implemented. I'm betting there's a whole lot of other goodies I'm going to find in QTPlasmaC and Linuxcnc in general that will make me glad I made the change.

Keith

yes, I am committed to making the switch (most of my uccnc stuff has been removed.... )

I'm just headscratching with all the other stuff I have to setup (non plasma!) and get working.... but I'm slowly getting my head into it.... I think

Phil,

it's certainly worked to my advantage that my implementation got you guys to do the same. I had not even finished programming it together with my THC in UCCNC (to get rid of additional hardware) as I'm short for time nowadays, so it's a relief to find it ready to go in PlasmaC.

Having a little browse through the QTPlasmaC documentation and I'm becoming very impressed. I also saw another feature packaged that I'd planned to use at some point on thick sheet - using old nozzles and doing all pierces first. On my system I'd have to use a custom post processor just for that but in QTPlasmaC, already built in. I love it LOL.

Rob,

I'm at exactly the same stage, the head scratching and slowly getting there. But after looking at what Linuxcnc and QTPlasmaC have to offer, I'm very sure our study efforts will be well rewarded, and we'll never look back.
Although I don't need it right now (doing plasma), cutter compensation is built into Lcnc. UCCNC doesn't have that. Now I'd always thought it's not necessary because the cam software sorts that out, but it never occurred to me about tool wear and on the fly adjustments DURING a machining job. When I was running a Siemens lathe in a machine shop I regularly checked parts sizes and adjusted for wear on the carbide tips. Lcnc has that capability whereas UCCNC does not. It will be something I'll definitely want if I ever make or buy a cnc lathe/mill.

And of course the other goodies in Lcnc like the "multi-meter", the halscope, the PLC, etc. Nerds like us belong here.

Keith

Keith

I'll leave this here:
github.com/FernV/NativeCAM



lathe or mill.

robertspark wrote:

Keith,

install 2.8 from the iso from a usb stick.

once it boots, you change the repository settings for linuxcnc to buildbot.

deb     http://buildbot.linuxcnc.org/ buster master-rtpreempt
deb-src http://buildbot.linuxcnc.org/ buster master-rtpreempt

then just run

sudo apt-get update

and then

sudo apt-get upgrade -y

from the terminal and it will upgrade / update to master.

given you are going to run Mesa hardware you will need to change the network using

apt-get install network-manager network-manager-gnome

and then run

apt-get remove wicd wicd-gtk

I normally restart at this point (although it's probably not required)

then run

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get autoremove

as it will clear out some of the related linked files / programmes that were required by wicd

(I'll come back later, got to go do something, to finish off how I have done my setup as I've done it so many times that I just do it automatically now)

I then setup the network address for the Mesa cards
get rid of the logon screen prompt
add qtvcp via script
add NativeCAM via script

I knew I wouldn't get away that easy.

Installed 2.8 from the iso, then ran the first command Rob gave me:
deb buildbot.linuxcnc.org/ buster master-rtpreempt

and I get a message:
bash: deb: command not found

I also tried to update to 2.9 from instructions on a Youtube video using the Synaptics Package Manager but I had no repositories listed with "buildbot" in the name, so couldn't do it that way either.

Any ideas ?

I'm quite a beginner at present so all these terminal commands are just cryptic code for now.

Keith

UPDATE

I think I managed to crack it. In SPM (Synaptics Package Manager) I deselected every repository as per the instructions in this link:
buildbot.linuxcnc.org/

and manually created two new repository links:
buildbot.linuxcnc.org/ buster master-rtpreempt (select binary from drop down)
buildbot.linuxcnc.org/ buster master-rtpreempt (select source from drop down)
doing "reload" each time.
After that opened SPM again and went through the upgrade process within that, and I now seem to be running 2.9.0

Hope I didn't screw anything up LOL.

Keith

Phil,

thanks a bunch.

Been out and I've just came back, and realised you'd replied literally 3 minutes after I wrote my post. I wrote my "update" post nearly 1 hour and 20 mins later, thinking nobody had replied. Of course dumb me had not reloaded the page to see if there were any replies to the thread. Would have saved myself over an hour of head scratching and Googling LOL.

While I'm here Phil if you haven't seen it where I said great job on QTPlasmaC (in a different thread) then I'll say it again. I believe you are one of the main developers for QTPlasmaC and after reading the manual it looks awesome. So a big thanks for your (and any other contributors) efforts in creating it.

Keith