I'm just starting on building a CNC router using MachineKit and a BBB. You'll still need a board of some kind, if for no other reason than to isolate the BBB from the rest of your system. I bought an OPTOCAPE ($165) to experiment with, but I will be designing and building my own board at the same time (mostly because I want all the right connectors on it).
So far, I have not had any success figuring out how to get MachineKit up and running. I also haven't tried that hard, but it's really non-obvious, and there are huge gaps in the documentation. I finally have enough pieces in place to try this in earnest, but my shop office buildout has taken priority (can't make room for the router until I finish that). I'm fairly sure MachineKit and BBB is the right way to go. MachineKit seems to want a real-time Linux kernel even though I don't think it's necessary because of the PRUs. There's also this project which might be worth considering: <https://github.com/hzeller/beagleg>. > On Mar 28, 2018, at 09:50 , Andrew Voelkel <jandyman.voel...@gmail.com> wrote: > > Hi, > > I was referred to the MachineKit group after discussing plans to switch my > router machine control from Mach3 on Windoze. He told me that people are > using the PRU on the BBB to do the stepper motor control for LinuxCNC. That > sounded attractive. > > (I have a Gecko motor driver. My system is 4 motors, but only because the x > motor is mirrored.) > > So I did a forum search here and it didn't really clear things up that much. > It was pretty down in the weeds. > > What I'm trying to figure out is whether using MachineKit LinuxCNC and the > BBB with the PRU is standard fare or not. I have basically two choices as far > as I can tell: > • Use MachineKit and a BBB I have lying around, and the PRU as stepper > control. Ride off into the sunset. > • Use a Mesa 7i92 for stepper motor control and standard LinuxCNC > instead of MachineKit, making sure that I have a realtime kernel installed > one way or the other. I'd probably still use the BBB as my CPU. > Although I like the idea #1 above because it is a one board solution (and I > save $89), the most important thing is that I choose the system that is > easiest to set up and most reliable. > > Does anyone have any opinions of which that might be? If both of these > configurations are regularly used, then I'll go with BBB and PRU and > MachineKit, since I can try it all out for the cost of my own time. But I > value my time so I don't want to get too experimental. > > Thanks for any help!! > > -- > website: http://www.machinekit.io blog: http://blog.machinekit.io github: > https://github.com/machinekit > --- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Machinekit" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to machinekit+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/machinekit. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- Rick Mann rm...@latencyzero.com -- website: http://www.machinekit.io blog: http://blog.machinekit.io github: https://github.com/machinekit --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Machinekit" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to machinekit+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/machinekit. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
