Looks like someone needs a happy-pill... How about the LCARS (of Star Trek fame) Home Automation interface <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=176YaM5jta4>?
Seriously though, Juergen Gnoss covered much of the important bits -- such as configurable UI's that can be as simple as 1 botton (C like) and as complicated as a desktop with all its apps (like PL1 and flying a plane with 10,000 buttons). But I think he missed something that is the real reason that it has not been adopted commercially -- it runs solely on Linux and not until recently on embedded machines. Most machine manufactures in the past considered non-Windows a non-starter. But as you point out, we could do a little better with showing examples of how simple a machine setup can be, most show the most fancy stuff (as we all know we do not have to go all Botticelli <http://www.openculture.com/2014/06/botticellis-92-illustrations-of-dantes-divine-comedy.html> on the UI, but we can if we want to). For the brave few who ventured into embedded territory found that there was little support within the LCNC community. Part of that, and part of the dynamics of what happes within the LCNC community takes a little background to know who is pushing the LCNC rock up the hill, and how much time they have to spend a month. Some time back there was a fairly substantial inflush of new blood into LinuxCNC and MachineKit. Before that the top 4 contributers was only able to dedicate about 100 hrs a YEAR, not each month. So where are the legions of minions to make the magic happen? On top of this, people building the controllers typically feel that hardware is the important part and we should support them in the software for free (because, well... we GIVE it away don't we?). So, this ends up with us "hobbyists" working on old equiptment when we break away time from work, family, and other projects. If/when some of these big name manufacturers decide to pony up test/integration gear, then I think you will find things moving a lot faster. There have been a couple of commercial ventures which have invested in LCNC. Or should I say used EMC/LCNC and once they got something stable, kept it that way and did not upgrade. I will be interested to see if Tormach will be any different <http://blog.cnccookbook.com/2015/02/17/tormach-moves-mach3-linuxcnc-pathpilot/>. Are they going to use LCNC and move on, or are they going to seriously give back to the community? I also know a lot more about the internals and history of EMC/EMC2/LCNC to feel comfortable saying that is is "a marvel of fantastic software engineering" but it is likely "far superior to many professional controllers" which should keep the likes of you up at night. It does me sometimes, but to be fair, that was after working as a contractor on a machine which doses people up with radiation as part of their cancer treatments. The take home message from that project was DON'T GET CANCER! So as for my new toys, my new lathe dresses out at just over 7,000# and is 10' long, and stand 5' tall. Is this a toy, or is this a real machine? I guess only time will tell, but we are setting up an entire tool-chain where we do all the CAD/CAM work in the office, and transfer the programs to the machine after all the processing, modeling, etc. Having a dxf2gcode is useful, but it does not have to be on the same computer as the RT drivers, etc. It can exist within the LCNC ecosystem/tool-chain. So, please forgive Dave's tripping over your buttons and take a happy pill for the day. Thank you for the suggestion of adding to our examples simple control examples to show how a stripped down minimalist machine would look like, and also for the implied suggestion of clarifying what should, and maybe should not, be included on a machine that is doing hard RT motion control. If I am not mistaken the advise in the past is to not have the computer doing anything on the net, or that has a huge resource cost, and perferably dedicate the computer to controlling the machine. EBo -- On Dec 25 2015 5:22 AM, Neil Whelchel wrote: > Hello Dave, > I simply can not afford to have a machine idle while I use an "app" > on it. > If it is not running, it is not making money. If I am editing a > program, > someone else is using the machine to make things. There are plenty of > small > shops and "one man bands" that use a desktop computer for CAD/CAM, > and > editing, then they upload the program to a machine to make the part. > I, for > one do not like to be sitting in the middle of a workshop in an > awkward > position to see a small display mounted to the side of a 5,000 pound > machine to write G-code, when I can do it from the comfort of my desk > in my > office. > Also, we are right back to if I am running something like an "app" on > the > machine, a keyboard and such is required, and I am not about to put a > keyboard on a machine, the coolant and chips would kill it before > there is > time to use it for anything. > I can understand why some hobbyists would want to use the computer on > their > machine to do other things than run the machine, but that is not the > scope > I am talking about here. Most of the people I have running machines, > just > want to load up the fixtures with stock, push the "go" button, and > take a > part out. The only time that they end up doing anything else is when > they > break something, or change to another part. > By adding "apps" to the machine, it is detracting from its simplicity > of > use to the machine operator. More moving parts, more to break. > The big problem I see with the Linuxcnc project is that its > maturation into > the real world is limited (more like blocked) by steering from > hobbyists. > Under the hood Linuxcnc is a marvel of fantastic software engineering > that > is far superior to many professional controllers, and if it was > treated as > such would give the mega bucks commercial controllers a big challenge > in > the marketplace. All it is going to take is a "big" machine company > to > adopt it... This will NOT happen in its current state because it is > still > dressed like a toy. There is nothing wrong with this either. If you > look at > my original post, what I am getting at is that Linuxcnc needs both. > It > needs a toy wrapper for hobbyists, and it needs a tool wrapper for > people > that want to use it as a tool. What I am saying is that there seems > to be a > push for it to be a toy when under the hood it is far better than > most > tools. I am wondering why there is not much (any) push from within to > make > a tool out of it while not detracting from its ability to be a toy. > -Neil- > > > On Fri, Dec 25, 2015 at 3:30 AM, Dave Caroline > <[email protected]> > wrote: > >> My main "app" is an editor I sit on the machine and edit the code to >> make the item, others use things such as dxf2gcode. >> >> I am one of many who are one man bands making stuff in various ways >> on >> various machines, three of mine are Linuxcnc, the hobbing machine >> has >> a screen to set up gear cutting, the mill has edited gcode which is >> designed at the same time as the fixture is set up, and a lathe >> usually used in mdi mode. >> >> This kind of flexibility is missing on machines made for >> "operators". >> >> Dave Caroline >> >> >> >> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ >> _______________________________________________ >> Emc-developers mailing list >> [email protected] >> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-developers >> > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > _______________________________________________ > Emc-developers mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-developers ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ Emc-developers mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-developers
