Marcin, I found your Factor E project very interesting and hope to contribute.
For the control, you might wish to investigate the use of a "thin client" which is a diskless, lightweight computer intended mainly for web surfing. I've been playing around with the Netier XL1000; see: http://fennetic.net/machines/netier which sells on ebay for $30 shipped. (sometimes for much less.) It's an AMD K2 processor clocked at 200-400MHz depending on whether the heatsink has a fan or not. Also the RAM is limited at 32MB stock but it's expandable (2 slots) with low-profile DIMM's. These have a 44-pin 2mm spacing IDE connector (read: weird) which I've used to successfully boot from a compact flash drive. A better solution is to PXE boot over the network and run the whole thing via a laptop connected to the ethernet port with a crossover cable or hub. Then you can run AXIS remotely on whatever laptop you have. Think of it more like a printer than a game console. The advantages: it's small, has a parallel port, has no moving parts, has a PCI/ISA riser slot (i think that's what the brown connector is for) The Netier achieved 50,000ns max latency over the course of several days with X11 turned off; the latency goes up to ~1ms if you move a window around. So, 50,000ns = 10kHz max step rate --> 2kHz realistic step rate. Won't run a high-speed high-resolution stepper system, but since yours is low resolution it should be good enough anyway. Average latency is more like 15,000ns so you could bump it up a notch if you can tolerate the occasional glitch. Steppers are gross by the way, especially with inexpensive drive electronics. Have you investigated homebrew servo motors at all? Some other things to consider: * case should have filtered air and be well sealed to prevent metal dust and chips from entering * get a sealed keyboard such as the silicone roll-up variety * I have a pile of XL1000's, and I could send you a couple -fenn On Wed, 5 Mar 2008, Marcin Jakubowski wrote: > Dear Group, > > It appears that it's best for me not to attempt EMC with a laptap. I'll > dry a desktop. > > I would like to compose my own desktop EMC PC to run the acetylene torch > that I am working on. > > Can someone suggest a set of proven components to make this work? I'm > looking for a good price, and it does not necessarily have to be top > performance. I need only as much computer power as will provide > effective EMC operation of 3-4 stepper motors for my torch table. > > Please let me know recommendations: > > 0. Case > 1. Motherboard > 2. CPU > 3. Memory > 4. Hard drive > 5. Disc drive > 6. Flat panel screen > > other? > > Thanks, > Marcin > ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This SF.net email is sponsored by: Microsoft Defy all challenges. Microsoft(R) Visual Studio 2008. http://clk.atdmt.com/MRT/go/vse0120000070mrt/direct/01/ _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
