Homemade, cheap, plasma CNC

Hey snowgoer540, no objection to changing over, having spent a few months getting 2.8.0 to work I’m reluctant to change is all. Also the cnc is in the shed with no internet available so I have to do everything in the house then take USB to the shed to load up. This caused no end of frustration when I changed from Mach 3 to LinuxCNC to start with.

If it’s all it’s cracked up to be I’ll look at changing, however, for 99% of the time 2.8.2 is doing everything I need and I know how to manipulate it now to get around its limitations.

Cheers

If you are on Buster, it's a much easier task, but I can understand the frustrations of lack of internet, etc.

No chance to take the pc to the house to do most of the heavy lifting, then work on the config in the shed?

I think it's all it's cracked up to be, but perhaps I am biased. I'd recommend a good thumb through the docs: linuxcnc.org/docs/devel/html/plasma/qtplasmac.html

Somewhere around here I've made a list of key features/upgrades, etc, and it's only grown since then. That said, 2.9 is the development version, and as such it doesn't come risk free. Generally issues are quickly resolved, but they do pop up from time to time. To me the reward > the risk. But obviously everyone needs to weigh the benefits for themselves. All that disclaimer stuff said, QtPlasmaC has been stable.

At any rate, I can appreciate your situation and why you'd want to stay put. If you decide to switch over, there are plenty of people here willing to help get you going.

There is always a way.
If the toggle will only work on an input pin, I think you could fake that with an and2 component give or take a typo or two

If any and2s jhave been added previously, you might need to modify the existing loadrt statement

I would not rush into QTplasmac until the dust settles after the move to Python3. I think have QTplasmac sorted but I'm not in love with it. It is very sluggish on my hardware

rodw wrote:

I think have QTplasmac sorted but I'm not in love with it. It is very sluggish on my hardware[/code]

It works fine on my old Dual-Core 2.80GHz Pentium with 2gb RAM and also a Gigabyte Brix Dual Core 1.5GHz Celeron with 4Gb RAM.

rodw wrote:

I would not rush into QTplasmac until the dust settles after the move to Python3. I think have QTplasmac sorted but I'm not in love with it. It is very sluggish on my hardware

Perhaps it's not in love with you either...

I've not heard anyone else refer to it as "sluggish". Runs fine on everything I have it on, including the Virtual Machines I have set up. All on Python3 and cover Mint, Buster, and MX Linux.

I'd posit that there's an issue with your recently installed OS/dependencies that is to blame, and not QtPlasmaC.

snowgoer540 wrote:

rodw wrote:

I would not rush into QTplasmac until the dust settles after the move to Python3. I think have QTplasmac sorted but I'm not in love with it. It is very sluggish on my hardware

Perhaps it's not in love with you either...

I've not heard anyone else refer to it as "sluggish". Runs fine on everything I have it on, including the Virtual Machines I have set up. All on Python3 and cover Mint, Buster, and MX Linux.

I'd posit that there's an issue with your recently installed OS/dependencies that is to blame, and not QtPlasmaC.

Yeh dunno. It seems OK on my Chromebook running a Sim. The chromebook is not PREEMPT_RT. On the table I'm running on a Celeron J1900 with 4Gb (similar to the brix  Phil mentioned). Latency is better than my old J1900 Brix. I'm running Mint 19.3. I've done so much installing recently but I don't think the current environment is broken. I tried hard to do a deb install on MX Linux and Mint and just could not get either working so I am running a RIP install using your list of dependencies. Thats OK as RIP is all I have ever used in the past.

Upgrading to the latest Python3 version of V2.9 on my chromebook took me back to a dependency nightmare as quite a number of new dependencies were required even to open Axis. A lot weren't caught in the build process.  I don't think James needs that pain right now

But on the table QT seems like its running in treacle. You can't use the GUI buttons to stop the machine as they are not responsive enough which is my real concern so I reach for a hardware estop. There seems to be plenty of RAM when I run top.

I'm quite plasma time poor right now. My sales have gone through the roof, my supply chain is broken due to covid and I'm making parts I've never made for years becasue of shipping delays. I've even thought of buying a CNC lathe but I really need an 80mm spindle just to machine plastic so its not an entry level machine.

I'll have another look when I get time.