LinuxCNC vs Commercial

DuNuNuBatman wrote: Yeah, probably not for this one. I'm probably going with Todd's recommendation of starting with an older used machine and possibly updating the controls if necessary. I'll look at doing a build once I'm more familiar with it and already have something in place.

Updating the controls can be a major undertaking if you haven't done this before. If your shop needs to be OSHA compliant then you need to come up to speed as far at the latest safety requirements. Even if it isn't a shop under OSHA oversight you still want to consider building the controls in a way that is compliant. Dust removal is another big factor in safety and something that justifies an enclosed machine to help contain dust and swarf.

wizard69 wrote:

DuNuNuBatman wrote: Yeah, probably not for this one. I'm probably going with Todd's recommendation of starting with an older used machine and possibly updating the controls if necessary. I'll look at doing a build once I'm more familiar with it and already have something in place.

Updating the controls can be a major undertaking if you haven't done this before. If your shop needs to be OSHA compliant then you need to come up to speed as far at the latest safety requirements. Even if it isn't a shop under OSHA oversight you still want to consider building the controls in a way that is compliant. Dust removal is another big factor in safety and something that justifies an enclosed machine to help contain dust and swarf.

It's still orders of magnitude easier than starting from scratch.

i so something interesting on the commercial side. Protection against runways on the controller . That must be an interesting thing .

What makes commercial controllers special? A lot of them seem to run windows which for me would indicate it is a front end to a hardware controller.

At this point, I'm probably going to bail on the diy route and instead get a machine with support. Down time would be more expensive I think...
I'm still very much interested in this on a more personal level. The biggest issue I have all of the controllers is the input. You can either put the gc on a flash drive or if it is really fancy, you can pull it from network storage. One of the main reasons I wanted to use LinuxCNC over Mach was I could write a custom UI that would integrate our existing project software so the employee could select from a project instead of manually selecting the pre-nested code from a file store.

Im considering upgrading the controller on our thermwood C67 5 axis machine. its form 2008 with the current controller being from 2011. Issue is that if it's done via thermwood its a full rebuild of the motors/drivers and controller box/ power supply with install is like 90-95k. We believe that with a little work and our current understanding we can do the upgrade ourselves of just the controller leaving our current motors still on the machine. Do you have any recommendations to use either linux or anything else? Id love to chat with you further about using linux and doing it correctly if you are willing to talk via email/ phone. thanks!

Start a new topic on the "show your stuff" section of the forum, in the tittle put retrofit of whatever your machine is named, attach plenty of pictures of the existing machine and control and wiring with details on motors and drives, add whatever info you think might help, wait for replies.
There are plenty of us here who do a lot of retrofits and new builds, some do magnificent machines with details worth the "hall of fame", so plenty of help on tap, just ask.