I'm always trying to nudge my friends and YouTube garage machining buddies to adopt LinuxCNC. It's good natured, but I am serious. I notice reluctance on their part, but I try to reassure them by telling them, at this point, I really don't see how Mach could be any easier to install and configure. Other than sending a free technician to do it for you, it's about as easy as it gets. But there still seems to be some hesitation. They seem to regard me as the siren of Greek mythology, trying to entice their ship onto the rocks.
Last week, a friend's hard drive crashed on his mill and he spent most of the week getting it running again, and most of that of course was Windows and Mach. I told him that I routinely backup the small LinuxCNC folder by dragging it to a USB thumb drive. That contains all of my machine configuration files and all of my G code. If my hard drive died, I'd plug in a new one, pop in the Ubuntu/LinuxCNC thumb drive and reinstall everything in a few minutes, then drag the old LinuxCNC folder to the new hard drive and Bob's your uncle. I'm making chips. Tell me again how Linux is too geeky complicated and Mach and Windows is so easy? There are plenty of people who genuinely like Mach and do a lot of free advertising for them, including hardware manufacturers who say things like, "No matter what you start with, you'll end up using Mach." But for each of these Mach cheerleaders, there seem to be a person on the serious side of hobby machining, typically people who started with CNC as a hobby who are now doing KickStarter manufacturing, opening small town machine shops, etc., and they started with Mach but seem unhappy with it. They're the Mach captives. They use Mach, including the more advanced features, but they make disparaging comments. I watch their YouTube videos and they say, "Well, I went back out to the shop and Mach had crashed again. Big surprise." But these captives seem to be suffering from the CNC version of Stockholm Syndrome. They're sympathizing with their captors. When I suggest how easy it'd be to swap hard drives and install LinuxCNC and use the same hardware, (and I've even volunteered to do it for them) and if they didn't like it they could put the old hard drive back in and not miss a thing, they mumble a bit and change the subject. Typically, their little CNC machine shipped with Mach and they're afraid to wander off the reservation. Here's a partial summary of the issue of Digital Machinist that Jack mentioned: http://www.digitalmachinist.net/comingsoon/contents/view There's an article in there (that I haven't read) about using LED ring lights for spindle mounted workpiece lighting. I bought a very nice Aluminator 2.0 LED ring light on eBay on August 30th that's made to magnetically attach to the spindle. It's very nice and well worth the US$125 on my milling machine. My old eyes need all the light I can get. www.ebay.com/itm/400759473641 On October 7th, I bought an 80mm Angel Eyes LED ring light on eBay for US$11 that's marketed as accent lighting to surround an automotive headlight. It requires half an amp at 12 volts and it will require a bit of redneck engineering (I'm thinking 3M VHB double sided foam tape, or I may machine a PVC housing) to attach to the 80mm water cooled spindle motor on my CNC router. http://www.ebay.com/itm/281435821348 On 10/19/2014 09:00 AM, Dave Cole wrote: > Whoa....That's a body blow to the Mach3 camp. > > The article they wanted: Migrating from Mach3 to Mach4 :-) > > The article they got: Migrating from Mach3 to LinuxCNC... :-( > > Dave > > On 10/18/2014 8:52 PM, Jack Coats wrote: >> There is an article in Digital Machinist, Vol 9 No 3, Fall 2014 with the >> title >> "Migrating from Mach3 to LinuxCNC" by Thomas Allsup (page 24). >> >> In case someone wants to check it out. I haven't read it yet. >> >> Just thought someone might be interested. >> >>> <> ... Jack >> "Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart"... Colossians 3:23 >> "Anyone who has never made a mistake, has never tried anything new." - >> Albert Einstein >> "You don't manage people; you manage things. You lead people." - >> Admiral Grace Hopper, USN >> "Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I >> learn." - Ben Franklin >> >> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ >> Comprehensive Server Monitoring with Site24x7. >> Monitor 10 servers for $9/Month. >> Get alerted through email, SMS, voice calls or mobile push notifications. >> Take corrective actions from your mobile device. >> http://p.sf.net/sfu/Zoho >> _______________________________________________ >> Emc-users mailing list >> Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net >> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users > --- > This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! 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