The surplus PC is only cheaper if it is indeed surplus. I just got two for free. A free quad core I7 is the most compute power per dollar I'm likely to find.
But for other applications I need a smaller physical size and low enough power to run on batteries. Low cost is a nice plus if I can get it. So, Have you seen the Rasberry Pi Zero. They are $5 each and run Linux. The "zero" is about 3/4 inch by 2 inches and again they sell for $5 from first their retailers, you don't have to go to eBay to get that price. US vendors have them. It has the same dual row of header pins and the pinout is the same as the larger Pi 3. https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/raspberry-pi-zero/ But for the LinuxCNC/Machinekit use case I'd go for the Pi 3 and a Mesa card that combo seems to by working with the existing code base. The Zero seems to be the ticket to put in a cloths dries so it can text your phone when the cycle finished or the web server in the electric meter. When an entire computer costs $5 retail quantity one you can afford to put them in everything from light bulbs to toaster ovens On Tue, Oct 25, 2016 at 2:10 PM, Kirk Wallace <[email protected]> wrote: > The appeal of consumer products is that they can be much cheaper than > industrial or custom products. Using a PC, and parallel port card with > LinuxCNC can make for a very affordable machine controller, but I am > always on the lookout for other options. Embedded processor cards are > popular now, but after one gets all of the bits needed (power supply, > housing, interface card, etc.) it's cheaper to find a surplus PC and be > done with it. > > I recently needed to replace the radio in my car and while cruising eBay > I saw an Eincar 2DIN radio and thought radios are sold in the millions > which keeps the cost low, it has a decently sized touch display, a > capable processor, USB and other I/O, and is already running Linux. It > seemed most of a controller is present. > > I found very little information on what goes on inside these radios, so > I had to get one to take it apart. Here is what I found inside: > http://wallacecompany.com/tmp/Eincar_radio/IMG_2440-2a.png > > Now, I'm not so sure it would work as a controller. The radio boots > immediately. The screens look sharp and react quickly. The touch feature > works very well, all of which makes for a good radio, but most of the > hardware inside is radio hardware, so the main board would be wasted on > a machine controller. Basically, that leaves the display and the > housing. So, I'm back to piecing together some sort of beagleduino > thing if I want a pad class controller. > > > -- > Kirk Wallace > http://www.wallacecompany.com/machine_shop/ > http://www.wallacecompany.com/E45/ > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > ------------------ > The Command Line: Reinvented for Modern Developers > Did the resurgence of CLI tooling catch you by surprise? > Reconnect with the command line and become more productive. > Learn the new .NET and ASP.NET CLI. Get your free copy! > http://sdm.link/telerik > _______________________________________________ > Emc-users mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users > -- Chris Albertson Redondo Beach, California ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Command Line: Reinvented for Modern Developers Did the resurgence of CLI tooling catch you by surprise? Reconnect with the command line and become more productive. Learn the new .NET and ASP.NET CLI. Get your free copy! http://sdm.link/telerik _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
