Different strokes for different people.
Tormach supplies a niche market and is surviving. :-)
I went the other way and bought a machine with a dead control at
auction. Trucked it in, shoved it thru the door of my shop and then
spent the next year getting it running, New servo amps, servo-to-go
card, encoders on the ballscrew, etc. Not for someone that wants a
turnkey op. Resale is not good; e.g. Mazak converted at Galesburg went
out the door for way under 1K$ and that had the tool change working, new
driver cards, and I think new amps. Labor of love or a challenge but
certainly not a business opportunity!
I must admit the subject prompted a lot of traffic.
Dave
On 1/26/23 8:45 AM, ken.stra...@sympatico.ca wrote:
Nor do I! That is why I sent a pile of cash to Tormach instead of trying to
roll my own. It just works and allows me to make chips without worrying
about editing files or applying updates that break things or... Others
obviously favour different choices!
-----Original Message-----
From: Stuart Stevenson <stus...@gmail.com>
Sent: January 26, 2023 11:38 AM
To: Enhanced Machine Controller (EMC) <emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net>
Subject: Re: [Emc-users] Running PathPilot on non-Tormach Machines
"Define a set of hardware that works and make their own distribution with
only one user interface. It doesn't surprise me that nobody wants to do
this thankless task."
Perhaps thankless but Tormach has built a presumably profitable business by
doing exactly that.
And then packaging and selling the hardware to match.
An added dimension many (me included) do not want to tackle.
Overall, I am very impressed (and satisfied) with the capability and
progress.
thanks
Stuart
On Thu, Jan 26, 2023 at 9:33 AM <ken.stra...@sympatico.ca> wrote:
"Define a set of hardware that works and make their own distribution
with only one user interface. It doesn't surprise me that nobody
wants to do this thankless task."
Perhaps thankless but Tormach has built a presumably profitable
business by doing exactly that.
-----Original Message-----
From: Eric Keller <keller...@gmail.com>
Sent: January 26, 2023 10:01 AM
To: Enhanced Machine Controller (EMC)
<emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net>
Subject: Re: [Emc-users] Running PathPilot on non-Tormach Machines
On Thu, Jan 26, 2023 at 8:24 AM <ken.stra...@sympatico.ca> wrote:
To me this is the minimum level of magic required to make a
commercially viable product. The vast majority of potential users
are uncomfortable (or don't want to bother) with manually modifying
configuration files. Of course the power of LinuxCNC is due to the
possibility of configuring things for all sorts of hardware. Without
magic the flexibility means that it will never be mainstream.
Nobody wants to give up the flexibility though. The problem that lcnc
has is aptly summarized in this thread where someone gave up because
they wanted to use an Rpi4 and ethercat. That's fine, and there are
plenty of people that have ethercat running with lcnc, maybe even on a
Rpi4. But both the
Rpi4 and ethercat require a bit of messing around, I think, and
neither are really mainline lcnc. Getting a 3 axis running on a Mesa
board on a PC with decent latency (another sticking point,
unfortunately) is trivial. Someone mentioned 4 axis. The problem
with that is that everyone has their own 4th axis. This is also the
problem with lcnc in general. I would say more than 90% of the
problems I see with people having trouble setting up lcnc is they have
a totally nonstandard install that wouldn't work with any other
software either. So they can't get it to work with lcnc, buy
something standard, and go install Mach. And then badmouth lcnc any
time the subject comes up.
The people that want to make lcnc more popular could do something
about it, I think. Define a set of hardware that works and make their
own distribution with only one user interface. It doesn't surprise me
that nobody wants to do this thankless task.
Eric Keller
Boalsburg, Pennsylvania
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