Re: [CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO] Black box heaven or the real BDI

> Can I get a $50 Pentium 100 with an NIC card, use a real BDI(Brain
> Dead Install) that makes this box into a dumb but networked
> controller, and then run my machine over a LAN from a comfortable
> Windows box? (better yet plug in a ROM, or boot from a floppy, but I
> won't get my hopes up)

Fred, you can do something like this. I would suggest you go for a
$100 pentium 200 (what I'm using) or maybe something slightly faster
in order to get good step reates. Also you will need a hard drive,
but probably not even 1GB (check with the current bdi maintainer) so
that is peanuts at today's prices, and you will need a cd-rom at least
during the install.

> If I wanted to set this up what would be the required components
> hardware wise, and how about software. Is this setup a violation of
> the RT-linux patent license?

The most direct way to do this would be to get an X server for
windows. This is a program that lets a windows box display graphical
applications that are running on a unix machine - its sort of a
graphical version of telnet. There are some free ones out there.
Then you are running EMC on the linux machine as intended - only you
are sitting in front of a remote display and keybaord. You can FTP
G-code files to the linux machine or with slightly more work make it
show up in network neighborhood under windows file sharing.

> What is the minimum hardware required to run EMC. A board that puts
> out Step & Direction or can it run the parallel port direct, with
> encoder feedback?

EMC works fine with just step and direction over the parallel port.
If you want closed loop stepper motors it supports the Kulaga/Mauch
DRO card and could be easily modified to support similar encoder
inputs. You only really need special hardware if you want to run
analog servos (as opposed to Gecko-style step servos).

Chris Stratton

-------------------------------------------------
Christopher C. Stratton
Engineer, Instrument Maker, and Horn Player
ccs@... 617 628 1062
http://web.mit.edu/~stratton/www/brassbuild.html