Re: emc problems

Jon's already asked some cogent questions. Another question is whether
you've got an adequate amount of RAM? If your host starts swapping to
disk, the performance goes down the drain.

I'd second Jon's suggestion that you throw out the current O/S and
install the latest BDI (which very recently got notched up to
BDI-4.38). If you don't want to throw out the current O/S, then
perhaps you can add or swap out disks so you can install the BDI to a
new partition.

I've recently installed BDI-4.30 on several old machines, the slowest
being an old Dell box with a 450MHz PIII with 250MB of RAM. The EMC
executable that is included with the BDI worked fine in simulation
mode on all machines, as did EMC2 once I downloaded and built it (dead
easy if you follow the install notes---see www.linuxcnc.org). In my
case, I bought Jon's Universal Stepper Controller board both for its
functionality and so I can get decent pulse rates running EMC on old
machines I already have lying around, rather than buy a newer, faster
machine. My total installed cost was less with the USC. YMMV.

Good luck and best wishes in this new year.

Regards,
Kent