On 9/4/20 6:13 PM, John Dammeyer wrote:
Never said I changed from Mach 3 to LinuxCNC. I've not owned a Windows
machine for the better part of 30 years.
Oops. Sorry. For some reason I thought you had. What I'm looking for are
reasons why perhaps (again other than a dislike of Windows) why people changed.
Controller didn't do what they wanted or needed it to do,
dissatisfaction with the OS, or any other number of reasons. I'm not in
the market place trying to sell CNC controllers, so I settled on one
that worked for me, and happily enough, it had a Linux back end so I
wasn't forced to use Windows or a Mac, both of which I dislike.
Doesn't matter to me how many units that Aliexpress sold per year of that
controller. Wouldn't work on my machine, so I have no need to even
consider it.
I understand that. I think that Chris was basically trying to say the same
thing. If for example those types of far east controllers were selling in the
thousands that might say a lot about that type of user interface.
Or that they were cheap and were installed on a tablet that seems to be
ubiquitous these days. Unfortunately, the interface, both input and
output systems in the tablets leave a lot to be desired in the context
of a machine shop, at least from what I've seen of tablets. I just
don't want to depend on wireless communications to control a machine
that can hurt me or someone else or cause other kinds of damage.
OTOH, I've not seen that sort of a control system on any of the Grizzly Tools
mills nor on any mills from Princess Auto or KMS tools here in Canada. I do
remember someone, maybe on the MACH group, stating they'd bought two for their
mills and were extremely happy with them. That they no longer had to muck with
a PC and could continue making chips.
Even if I did build an ELS-MILL I would never expect anyone with a proper
functioning system to change. I know I wouldn't. For example I have a
DRO-550 in addition to the two DRO350 kits. I'm still using the first DRO-350
I built. The second was to be a spare. The DRO-550 was to replace it but
never did.
I couldn't remember the name yesterday, must have had a brain fart.
Shumatech DRO's. They were exactly what I needed at that time and they
were priced right, and since I had an electronics background, building
from a kit was not a problem for me. They worked first time and have
been ever since. The DRO 350 started life on my mill, then got moved to
my lathe when I built the DRO 550 and installed it on the mill.
Honestly, the 550 is overkill for my uses on the mill, but he'd stopped
making the 350 and I figured I'd keep up with the technology.
So I'm likely the last person to change easily. That's why my PC on the mill
is still dual boot. Just in case I wanted to keep it the same as the CNC
router which is still running MACH3 on WIN-XP and a Shuttle Xpress as the MPG.
BTW, I really like that little unit.
I've never had a dual boot machine. Never saw the need for it. Guess
I'm old fashioned in a way. I dedicate a machine to do one thing only.
My laptop, running Linux Mint is my daily driver for emails, web
browsing and futzing around. My two other machines are dedicated to the
shop, one as the machine controller and the other is my design machine.
Each machine does what it does best and nothing else.
I think we're all basically in agreement that the design needs to be done
first. And before the design, a list of requirements.
It was never a debate about that. My first reply was written tongue in
cheek and it was assumed I didn't know what was involved in large,
complex computing projects. I've got lines of code running on
satellites in space. I do understand that it takes to go from ground
zero to being in orbit, literally. My comments were aimed towards all
the times some folks here complaining that this or that doesn't exist,
or why don't we push LinuxCNC into something that isn't LinuxCNC. The
code is there. It's open source. If folks don't like the direction
it's heading, grab the code, make your mods, and realize your dreams.
Nothing says you have to take LinuxCNC as it is and use it, though the
vast majority of folks do. If you want something different out of it,
it's up to you to make the changes and get what you want. The
developers will do what they can within the context and the framework of
what LinuxCNC is to take into your account wished for and needed
changes, they've worked pretty damn hard over the years and delivered an
astounding pile of software.
Tormach wanted something different, so they took the source and did with
it what they wanted. Yep, they paid for it. Yep, they're reaping the
rewards for doing what they did. Good on them. I think they did a good
thing. But they did it outside of the LinuxCNC development path. They
didn't come here complaining that LinuxCNC didn't fit their model of
what they wanted it to be. So they took it and changed it.
John Dammeyer
Mark
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