Re: EMC and Taig w/ MicroProto and DeskCNC

Reply to Message #88329
Lester Caine <lester@...> wrote:

> William - I must say I find it VERY difficult to follow your
> messages, it seems that the 'quotes' are some how reworked to be
> almost impossible to separate from your input. Normally I would
> expect to see quoted text better identified.

Lester, thanks for the heads up on my approach. I'll try to make
things clearer.

Lester thanks for responding to Erick Kilmen's first post on this
whole subject. I have found this whole discussion most
informative. Thanks for the information on EMC, it is very useful.

You wrote -

> One of the reasons I'm looking at EMC2 myself. I don't trust
> Windows and so I consider DeskCNC - while less reliant on Windows
> to move the machine - it is still reliant on windows feeding the
> correct information to the controller. Given the amount of time
> spend repairing machines I just don't have any confidence on XP as
> a real time operating system NT4 was the last version we actually
> managed to pass 24/7 operation tests.

Just by coincidence I am getting my CNC conversion started up after
having it sit for 8 months. I purchased a used Compaq Prosignia
last November and turned it on a month ago to load DeskCNC, Windows
XP, Norton Anti Virus, Outlook Express, and set up Internet Explorer
to run. After one week it died. There goes $141.80, $75 for the
used PC, $15 for memory upgrade, $35 for installing Windows XP from
a liscence I have from another PC that died, $10 for a Parallel
Printer Cable (which DeskCNC doesn't even run over), $6.80 tax. It
was the mother board that blew.

Well after reading your posts, I realize that I do not want Norton
anti virus, Outlook Express, or Internet Explorer running on a
dedicated CNC controller PC running DeskCNC. I don't know too much
about PCs, but it seems that if any of those programs decides to do
its thing while I am running DeskCNC to drive my CNC milling
machine, that the stream of DeskCNC step and direct commands might
get interrupted, and the job will get disrupted.

Fred Smith, if you read this post could you please comment on "this".

Also I remember, that when I was working in the 1990s, (before I
retired), using Windows 3.0, and opening an Excel spread sheet, a
Word document, Power Point (especially), the PC would come to a
grinding halt - because (I guess) the RAM got all clogged up. You
had to try and save your work somehow, turn the PC off, and then
turn it back on.

Now all of that has been eliminated by the operating system
evolution from Windows 2000, to Milenium, to XP. But running a CNC
interpreter program like DeskCNC for an hour to complete a milling
job - is the RAM getting saturated even with Windows XP. Maybe not
shutting down the PC, but having to go thru a RAM cleanup /
reorganization in the middle of the CNC milling job, and effecting
the CNC milling job. I don't know. Does anyone know?

I am planning to purchase a new HP Compaq, dx2200, with a minimum of
512 mega bytes of RAM, for my dedicated CNC PC running DeskCNC.

Again Lester, thanks for all the valuable information.

Bill Perun