Those vids I posted below about the mini cnc build out of desk drive parts got me all jacked up to build a tiny CNC. And being that I never throw away old PC’s and such, I go digging. So ended up tearing apart a couple of 15+ year old flatbed scanners and a copy machine. No real parts there except one slider and all the gear combinations you could ever want I think. The scanners though have a nice sliding rails and of course stepper motors. But then it occurred to me. I have 2 laptops (one a toughbook), 2 PC’s and a tablet. But Zero Parallel ports. So I drag out one by one, all my old PC builds. Which of course I’ve robbed parts from when needed. But still, mostly intact. Not a single one would post, not so much as a blip on the screen, although one did bleep a error code once, but never again. All 5 power up, but then nothing (2 486’s, Pentium, PII n PIII. The only one left, which I didn’t build was a compaq vintage 1997 I think, with a 400mhz cpu n 131megs of ram. Someone gave it to me and I had it out in the shed for a while (yes, Used it there). It works, or at least so far. Installing windows 98 as we speak (had linux on it) just to check it out. ooo… 4gb hard disk…
Linux would be better for a CNC controller than Windows. One of my controller PCs is a 1 GHz P3. It has a latency of 18500ns though so it is not great.
@Paul_Frederick Wouldn’t latency be fine on something like a CNC? But not a big fan of linux as a windows alternative. As a stand alone option, I luv it. On servers and CCTV DVR’s it’s great. It doesn’t pay to not be a teenager and new to linux. Their forums are full of a-holes, or at least they use to be. But dealing with linux as a everything OS is kind of like listing to a Norwegian talk. You think you understand some of the words, but nothing makes since. Would be easier if someone would write a DOS with all new language and functions instead of half copying here or there with no rhyme or reason for making the change. I can’t even imagine trying to find the right drivers for different things…
LinuxCNC is perfect for you. It comes with an older stable but rather brain-dead version of Ubuntu. They warn people that you can upgrade the LinuxCNC but not the OS. It is only for one thing, to run g-code to your cnc. You can download the .iso (disk image) file & write it to a cd then boot your old PC from it. If it runs nicely then you can install it right from this same cd. I agree Linux “gurus” don’t make it easy when people have problems. Most are too busy showing off what they know. But there are some really wonderful kind & patient people who really know more than the self-proclaimed “guru” types.
@Mat_Helm
Well Linux isn’t for everyone. Those of us that can manage manage quite well though. There is some DOS based CNC controller software. You might want to do an Internet search for it. I can’t imagine trying to find the right drivers for that kind of thing myself today though.
@Jean_Lotz
The LinuxCNC live distribution is hopelessly out of date today. I can’t in good conscience recommend it to anyone now. I install from source code on Linux distributions that are still supported. That is not exactly a beginner thing to do though.
As far as my patience goes Windows users wore that out for me many years ago.
@Jean_Lotz That actually sounds pretty good. Nice stand alone linux CNC OS. Like I said, I like the server stuff. Only thing is that I have no plan to use a super old pc (like the ones I was talking about) on a full size cnc. Just hunting a quick parallel port n spare parts for the tiny CNC thing. Will probably go with a exoressport card in the toughbook. So the whole point in the tiny CNC is to really play with the software. And I’d like to make my drawings n such right here at the main PC (3 big monitors, movie streaming on one of the side monitors while I pittle with vectors and what not), and convert n test them things. So I’d kind of like to stick with windows, even though I hate microsoft almost as much as I do apple.
@Paul_Frederick Don’t think I’m not thankful for your help and suggestions. I really do appreciate your taking the time. And I probably will give what Jean (and I think that’s what you meant too) mentioned above a shot. Who knows. I may end up running it here on my desktop in a emulator…
@Paul_Frederick This is true, but it’s always been a luv hate relationship with most of my ilk. XP I think was the last good product microsoft produced. But even that was chucked full of hidden locks n blocks. I think they have always tried to steer the customer in a certain direction, like herding cattle. When all they ever need do is give the customer what they want (ie. build a better mouse trap) and they’ll flock to your door (ie. google)…
You can load Linux on a separate partition so you can boot back into Windows when you want to. I have several pic’s set up as dual boots. Most everyone eventually prefers Linux and spends little time with booting into Windows.
@Jean_Lotz I use to do that with a lot of OS’s. Is the way I had linux setup way back when. Had a little boot menu program that presented a list of OS’s. But all things being near equal, I’d like to stay with windows for testing purposes. But will try the linux CNC as a stand alone on at least this old compaq when I get done playing with the tiny cnc build…
