Re: [CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO] EMC

Scott Hendershot wrote:

> I have more questions about using EMC. When I log in as a user and click on one of icons on the desktop to launch EMC I get the EMC splash screen for a few seconds, then it goes away and nothing else happens. If I start emc.run from a console window I can see that it starts to load up but then I get several messages about permissions and the application fails.

You have to be logged in a ROOT, or another acount with system priveledges, or
set up the appropriate files with root priveledges, as they access physical hardware.

> If I log in as root I can run emc.run but the application is slow. The mouse becomes unresponsive for several seconds at a time and the screen updates may take several seconds as well. This machine is a pentium II 233MHz. Does emc just run that slow? Would the performance be acceptable if run as a regular user instead of root?

You have a marginal CPU for running EMC with steppers. It is definitely too slow for
freqmod.o, but can be used with steppermod.o

However, you need to slow down the interrupt service rate. With freqmod.o,
this is PERIOD in the [EMCMOT] section of the .ini file. You would make it a
larger number, in modest increments. For steppermod.o, it is the CYCLE_TIME
parameter, in EACH axis of the [AXIS_n] sections. These are in seconds,
and again, increase it in modest increments. But, this should be evenly divisible
into the TASK_CYCLE_TIME.

EMC is running, what is happening is that the real-time component needs
nearly 100% of the CPU as you have it set, and doesn't leave enough for the
GUI and other tasks. Regular user / root makes no difference in performance.

Jon