Re: [CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO] Re: USB and ncPOD system

John Stevenson wrote:

> So the next time someone tells you just install this and try it, you will have it running in 20 minutes what they really mean is I CAN HAVE IT RUNNING IN 20 MINUTES.

It misses the point of what I was trying to say John.

*I* can install a full Linux desktop computer for a customer in under 20
minutes - including OpenOffice and all upgrades using the latest version. They
simply log in and use it - since all they ever use is the browser accessing
the sites on-line services and the word processor for replying to mail.

It takes *ME* a good FOUR hours to install XP on the ITX box and often longer
just to get to the point where I can put Mach3! Once set up at the customer
site we normally just put Mach3 in startup, and again it's all they ever use.
So they only need to learn 'Mach3' - I have a couple of sites where the user
does not have another computer - they get someone more computer literate to
create the gCode and they just use it as a CNC Machine :)

So if I currently HAD a Linux based option as an alternative to Mach3 it WOULD
be a much more commercially viable use of my time? I do the work and the
customer just gets shown how to use it.

The point of the current discussion is that Linux is just a tool in the chain
between the user and the machine. The GREX or ARCNC100 are supplied as
finished working co-processors - does it matter what OS is on them?

The grey area is what do we use to DRIVE them. Since both are CAPABLE of
running stand alone. A lot of the slave kit I currently run ( not CNC ) simply
provides a browser page I can look at to monitor status and control things. I
could envisage both the GREX and the ARCNC100 working in that way, so you can
set up and monitor them from the CAD design computer. ncPod is quoted as
having a download capability as so feasibly could be run the same way. That is
you don't need a full computer with each CNC machine, just the slave
controller. If I could configure my own ITX box with EMC2 so that it work like
this, it's just another option and the user does not need to learn Linux, just
the interface to it.

*IF* someone wants to play with the co-processor, then the fact that one of
them is using Linux makes that possible. How many people can currently work on
development and improvements to GREX?

--
Lester Caine - G8HFL
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