Re: [CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO] Re: Can I make a XYZ CNC?

Well you are going to get all sorts of answers to this question, in the
end it is up to you. I will however offer up my point of view.

1.
Never used any of the DOS based CNC programs. I do understand that at
least a couple of them are very good as there is no OS problem
associated with this route. The problem with DOS is that you have
little to choose form for design software. Well at least software
that is up to date.

2.
I gave up on Windows several years ago so I don't recommend it for
anybody or anything. That of course is a highly biased point of view.
Some people have reported good work with this OS though. The other
issue is that Windows is where the majority of design software lives.

3.
Linux is what I would recommend for a PC OS. Yes there is a learning
curve. To the best of my knowledge there is only EMC for CNC on
Linux. I'm in the process of building a machine so I can't detail
experiences with EMC. Do understand however that EMC is under heavy
development and version #2 is just making the rounds. Good design
software seems to be limited to QCAD at the moment also.

One issue with EMC is that it does lag kernel development a bit. I'm
not sure if they have stabilized on a 2.6.x kernel yet. That can be a
bit of a problem, as I highly recommend the most recent distro you can
get if you expect to use the Linux machine for more than just CNC.
I'm sure a EMC developer can chime in with the current status here.

4.
The option that you have with PC hardware that you left out is to
install multiple OS'es on the machine. Linux provides a boot loader
that can be configured to start up DOS, Windows or Linux at boot.
This gives you maximal flexibility. Generally flexibility is good,
but there is a couple of catches. One is that it burns a bunch of
disk space. The other is that you can't effectively run more than
one OS at a time, at least for realtime operation. Especially for the
Linux novice, I believe dual boot is a very good option. I gave up on
dual boot when I ran into disk space issues and haven't looked back.

*******************************************************************************************************************

Ultimately like I mentioned at the begining the choice is yours. Do
not be surprised to find that having multiple computers and networking
them together might be the ideal option.

Thanks
Dave

On Sun, 2005-02-27 at 07:49 +0000, apaulsalerno wrote:
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> OK so I have last pc saved away, it runs WIN 98 and I would like to
> strip out all SW and start over with a dedicated controller for a
> mill conversion. Best route? DOS, Linux, Windows ? I can use it
> for only control if thats better but would prefer to do some design
> on it as well. What programs should I be looking at?
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