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slowpoke wrote:

Bunch of questions, Hopefully someone can fill in a few blanks as I formulate a plan for the lathe.

I'm using Axis for my mill and I'm completely happy with it. I'm now considering using LinuxCNC for my lathe. I definitely want to maintain manual operation capability.

Presently I have a derivative of the Clough42 ELS with feedback from the spindle and a stepper driving the leadscrew for threading. I like the simplicity of selecting various thread pitches metric and SAE electronically.
1) I don't suppose LinuxCNC has this "ELS" capability?

2) I also have DRO scales. Assuming I will use a MESA board, is it possible to connect the scales to the MESA board and use LinuxCNC as a glorified DRO without actually driving any steppers/servos?

3) Assuming for the moment I can use LinuxCNC simply as a DRO, what MESA board(s) would be a good fit for say max 3 encoder inputs and possibly up to 3 steppers later?

 I have a RaspberryPi of some sort and I might try using it for the LinuxCNC for both space and $.

4) What RaspberryPI's are likely to have acceptable latency and what versions should I avoid?

 I find the Axis GUI a good fit for my needs on the mill, what GUI is a good fit for lathe control?

Much appreciated.

 

I won't comment on GUI choice(s) here - those are personal preferences.  Regarding your other questions:

• Yes, LCNC has "ELS" capability.  Not in a turn-key configuration, but there's no reason you can't set LCNC up to act like your ELS.  All the elements are present: spindle encoder + Z-axis positioning motor + configurable logic.
• Yes.  And LCNC already has a "DRO" mode.  See  linuxcnc.org/docs/devel/html/gui/mdro.html
• You can read my long-winded post here:  forum.linuxcnc.org/27-driver-boards/5160...i-buy?start=0#292576
  • I'm not an expert, but I think the absolute cheapest Mesa combination to get an FPGA card (required) and 3 axis/spindle encoder inputs & step/dir outputs is a 7i92 (any variant) and a 7i85s.  You'd still need something else for IO, but that depends on your particular setup.
  • If your IO needs are moderate, a 7i96s and 7i85s would get you the IO and keep packaging to two (vs three) boards.
• Based on very little personal experience, Rpi's usually have decent to very good latency and potentially not-so-good user-interface response.  i.e. 'laggy' if using a power-hungry GUI.  If you are using Mesa hardware you don't have to worry about latency with an Rpi. 
  • I've got an Rpi5 and while I'm not using it (right now), it was just fine when I tested it with LCNC and Probe Basic (no interface lag).
• Lathe GUI - any GUI is fine except Axis.
  

Bunch of questions, Hopefully someone can fill in a few blanks as I formulate a plan for the lathe.

I'm using Axis for my mill and I'm completely happy with it. I'm now considering using LinuxCNC for my lathe. I definitely want to maintain manual operation capability.

Presently I have a derivative of the Clough42 ELS with feedback from the spindle and a stepper driving the leadscrew for threading. I like the simplicity of selecting various thread pitches metric and SAE electronically.
1) I don't suppose LinuxCNC has this "ELS" capability?

2) I also have DRO scales. Assuming I will use a MESA board, is it possible to connect the scales to the MESA board and use LinuxCNC as a glorified DRO without actually driving any steppers/servos?

3) Assuming for the moment I can use LinuxCNC simply as a DRO, what MESA board(s) would be a good fit for say max 3 encoder inputs and possibly up to 3 steppers later?

 I have a RaspberryPi of some sort and I might try using it for the LinuxCNC for both space and $.

4) What RaspberryPI's are likely to have acceptable latency and what versions should I avoid?

 I find the Axis GUI a good fit for my needs on the mill, what GUI is a good fit for lathe control?

Much appreciated.
 

Thank you! That did the trick. I did that when I was trying to mash two files together, but when I realized that I could use the wizard i forgot about it plus the wizard lets you select the drive which gives you 500 for that value which maybe keeps you from running away or burning something up but doesn't do much for making the motors turn. I dug the other specs out of my old files for the drive and put them in the wizard and the steppers sound happy again. Now I just have to get the spindle drive to respond and I'll be back where I started :O) Thanks again for your quick replies and patience with me.

The drives are there and should be working.

I had this whole mill making chips well for a few years with a parallel port and 2.7 i think. A power surge took out the VFD for the spindle. There was some glitch with linux that the screensaver wouldn't wake up so you'd have to reboot. I had that one bypassed, but it resurfaced and I couldn't remember how to fix it. I made a bad vfd buy on ebay and later a couple of stepper drives went bad at some point. Then it sat for a while. I'm trying to get it running again now.

It has some new to me used gecko 201's on all 3 axes. Its got an offbrand new vfd that works in manual mode at least on the spindle. and a new (used) PC with 2.9 on it.

I checked for movement on all three connected axes. Seems to have different holding torque on different axes but no movement whatsoever.

Ok, this is getting weird ... Yesterday i mounted the mesa card from the lathe into the mill, all worked fine... made parts for like 3+ hours .. Today i power up the mill again and the second mesa card network is also no longer working I dont understand, there was zero change to the electronics, since decenmber last year or sometime around.. (added 3d-probe)
The only power coming to the mesa card is 5v from a step down converter (24v->5v) which goes into the vc+/gnd and +5 to the input common.. all outputs go to a relay board. China spindle to pwm 0-10v . Xyz-axis Stepper drivers are on a seperate 48v psu, A-axis Stepper is on the 24v psu

This setup was working for ~1 year... Is there any chance some voltage spike (iam no electronics guy ) could kill only the ethernet ?

-
schnellmued

Good evening @ my1987toyota,  Thank you for your valuable advice, I understand your explanation on the X and the Y axis. I can picture that in my head.

This Nema 23 motor and the associated driver is only hardware I have, I bought just a single one so can be familiar with the wiring and how stepper motor works.

Originally, I was thinking of Mach3, whereby I can use a cheap, around $AUD 20.00 BOB, and readily available. But LinuxCNC looks more appealing even though it is a bit more involved. I have seen videos where they run motors and spindle with LinuxCNC without any mechanical parts. I would like to take this path as well, once I understand the electronics, I will think about getting the mechanical parts.

I will heed advice and will be reading the LinuxCNC manual I have seen videos on it but I have not done a lot of reading yet.

Thank you and best regards,

...behai.

 

Greetings,
I'm wondering,  it's it possible to connect a couple of controller boards  (like Arduino) to LinuxCNC, i.e.one for XYZ, anothe for ABC, one more for adding a turret or a double spindle..?

Why not, it seems to me there must be a way now as computers got super processing powers.

If yes, is there a specific controller board type(s) that can be connected together? Maybe several types may inter communicate with LinuxCNC and to themselves too?

Or maybe connect a number of these boards to a number of servo motors and drivers and other boards to other stepper motors and drivers?

Exactly, I am just at a beginner, trying to figure out how to make my super fancy machine., so do you think my dreams are valid, or can be true soon?
Is there some hardware that I have to buy prior to others, you know in order to plan the priorities and budget, but make sure I want to build the fancy CNC?

I'm sure there are many like me.

Thanks,,
Byes

from what I can tell the pnconfig doesn't give the option for step/direction, and the stepper configurator doesn't do addressing other than parport, so the mesa addressing would have to all be put in later. Im not at the shop now so I can't show what the set up is now, but to me it looks like its analog when it need to be step and dir.. I did attach my hal and ini in the first post.