Ok after another weekend wasted trying to get my TinyG G2 to behave properly I’ve had enough (note this isn’t a Chilipeppr issue - though I’ve had them, this is the TinyG giving me random panic states, probing failing in random odd ways despite testing my electrical setup with oscilloscopes and confirming its definitely not me, etc.).
Time to move on, either to a new GRBL solution or to LinuxCNC. I have very limited time to get back up and running since I have a large amount of cutting I need to do in the next month.
Would love to hear what you guys are all running and what your thoughts are on the relative pros and cons.
I am currently considering the Azteeg X5 GT with the Bigfoot BSD2660 drivers.
The GT is one option if you want to use those drivers, alternatively could use the C3D Mini with external stepper adapters as the “Smoothie brain” to run external stepper drivers.
I’ve recently been using the M1 from Panucatt with the big foots. A guy from here @Justin_Adie has a GRBL1.1 release for @jlauer CP that will hopefully be wrapped up and released soon. The current CP/GRBL will work but not perfectly. Ideally, all the fanciness of CP/TinyG will come over. If it does I’ll switch all the kit offerings to this set up. Main reason @Ben_Delarre as I believe it will drive the VFD without issue, 0-10v spindle output on the board.
I have been deeply playing with the idea of MACH stuff and LinuxCNC. I always have to keep builders in mind when I play though. So the Linux and Mach would require a different PC build it seems. Adding a desktop to every machine is not in the books for me. Plus it looks like you have to stay on PCI to keep it real time. A few other things I’m not in love with but still researching. Guys swear by LinuxCNC though.
I think we have become kind of spoiled with a small board with drivers on-board and a USB interface.
Yeah from my investigations into LinuxCNC it seems that it is a bit of a headache getting appropriate linux hardware together and external stepper driver hardware plus steppers themselves. There do appear to be some off the shelf solutions but most seem quite pricey.
I was leaning towards Smoothieware on the G5 XT but the thought of having on board spindle control is kinda nice, though to be honest I quite like tweaking it with the control panel anyway!
@Ben_Delarre have a look at @Machinekit_io , fork/evolution of LinuxCNC, runs on a BeagleBone Black with a Cape for a cheap and compact setup. Also, for a more standard/pro setup, it has a (non exhaustive) list of supported hardware in documentation with various kind of boards (personnaly lurking at Mesanet ethernet boards) at all prices.
Indeed, it needs a computer, but SBCs today provide all the power needed in a (very) small form factor, cheap ones can be found.
@Ben_Delarre your looking for a new controller, I’m looking for a tester. I can’t give it away right now, but if your interested… I’d love to see you try all options…
we do need to square your machine. After that… magic.
The interesting thing about Linux is we could easily make our own distribution that holds all the drivers and is ready to run. I went through all my junk hardware prepping for my build and built a few Linux installs to run Chilipeppr. In the old hardware I have getting Webgl running was a problem but for newer hardware it’s not hard.
