On 2/17/20 7:51 PM, John Dammeyer wrote:
SNIP
Truthfully, all the Intel type NUC PCs don't have parallel ports and unless you
buy two 7i92H or whatever MESA board you buy there is no guarantee that they
will be there in 20 years either.
https://www.intel.ca/content/www/ca/en/products/boards-kits/nuc/boards.html
But if that RPi4 costs $50 and your 7i92H costs you $89. Then buy 4 of the
RPi4. That's the price of one Intel NUC PC compatible and now you have 3
spares.
But I agree. All this stuff being built nowadays has a life of 1 to 3 years before it's
out of date. As long as I don't update my iPhone 4S it will work. I'm still on the
original battery and get about two days out of it. But if I update the OS then Apple
will make sure that my 4S is useless. And already the industry has done some of that by
updating HTML pages in such a way to provide that "improved user experience"
which is code for more advertising and tracking but it breaks the browser on the iPhone
4S. So that I can't do very well anymore.
And of course new apps aren't backwards compatible so eventually I'll have to
buy a new phone.
Ah but LCNC IS backward compatible, forget the base hardware, the
software still runs!
It's probably the biggest reason I'm considering LinuxCNC instead of MACH3/4.
The lack of drivers for the newer hardware with the older OS is the clue. But
the latency of LinuxCNC on the parallel port means an upgrade to some sort of
Ethernet device. And your 20 year old PC will face that same issue likely if
it fails. Not a bad thing. Just nothing 20 years old can be replaced with
something identical.
If you want to keep using software stepping that is fine, my old machine
runs great with no latency problems. I recently finished a retro on an
identical machine but this one has full servo 4 axis with spindle
encoder that will run just as fast as the motors will go and spindle
will turn with rigid tapping. It set me back a little over $1K but is
well worth it for me. Now you do not want to spend $1K on your machine
but a board from Pico or Mesa will get you into high speed steppers for
not as much and no worries about latency, your choice.
Think of LCNC as a constantly updated OS and drivers unlike Mach3/4
Windows, just add a little hardware and let it rip!
Ed.
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