Re: [CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO] Re: Big servo motors drive recommendations

Mark Vaughan wrote:

>
> As to EMC2, I have spent a long time getting all the rest of the machine
> configured to work with Mach, I don’t really want to get into another
> package, I also have a massive array of programs prewritten for mach.
>
> I have friends at University, research colleagues that use linux and some of
> them EMC a lot, their initial presentation is that it’s brilliantly stable,
> never falls over unlike windows, just what you want to hear, then you get to
> hear about the inefficiencies, the bugs etc etc., and you really wonder
> whether it is just having to learn something else full of bugs. I know mach
> and I like it.

Well, there are plenty of bugs in the development version of
EMC, but they usually last no longer than 2 weeks from discovery
to fix. But, the stable versions made for distribution rarely
have anything serious.

As for stability, EMC has been unmatched. I use it to produce
instrument panels, housings, etc. for my products. I have been
using it since 1998, and have not had one crash, failure,
malfunction, etc. since early 1999. So, that is over 8 years,
now! I do not run the development version on my production mill
because I'd like someone else to find any bugs first, and I have
real work to do. (I do run the development version on my
minimill, but that machine is for testing and demo purposes.)

So, 8 years without a SINGLE crash! Yes, there might be some
things that could be documented a little better, we are always
working on improving that. Inefficiencies? I don't know what
you mean by that. Inefficient execution of code on the CPU?
Inefficient motion planning? I think not! (Yes, there were
some problems with the trajectory planner on EMC1 when run above
400 IPM, but I believe we have corrected that in EMC2. I don't
have a machine tool that is fast enough to ever see the difference.)

As for Mach programs, the interpreters are very similar (Mach
started with the EMC G-code interpreter) so your Mach programs
will likely run with little or no changes in EMC.

As for OS reliability, I routinely have my Linux systems run 70+
days, and my desktop Linux machine at work ran over 400 days
before a power failure got it. My power at home is much less
reliable, but the machine I'm writing this email from has been
up 59 days so far.

Jon
Jon