On Sunday 13 November 2016 22:10:55 Chris Albertson wrote: > On Sun, Nov 13, 2016 at 9:35 AM, Gene Heskett <[email protected]> wrote: > > Greetings fellow travelers on the road to running machinery with an > > r-pi; > > > > That part I seem to have more or less under control, and whats left > > is a matter of carving up the hal file, and finishing the encoder, > > at which point its more a matter of keeping swarf out of places it > > doesn't need to access than any huge technical problems (famous last > > words...). > > > > So, lets talk display facilities for this beast. > > > > I have an Orange Pi + 2E, and the folks on the armbian forun have > > convince me to give the legacy version of the armbian build a shot. > > > > Now, both of these boards have a wifi facility, and one ethernet > > port only. So I am proposing, and you folks can shoot me down, to: > > 1. make both boards part of my local network, the r-pi is already. > > 2. use the O-Pi for the x-renderer by setting up the wifi connection > > between the two such that the R-Pi is slaved to the O-Pi, and the x > > data is sent back to the O-Pi over this wifi connection, which AIUI > > is faster than the ethernet. Use a totally unencrypted connection > > between the two as they will be perhaps 6 to 9" apart in a closed > > steel box which should fairly well shield them from any interference > > from the neighbors and vice versa. > > > > I did manage to find the wifi page in the Chinese OS the O-Pi boots > > to when it can't find a bootable u-sd card, and its longer antenna > > makes it an excellent band scanner in that it can at least see the > > BSID of several neighbors routers, and actually displays it in > > English. The antenna on the R-Pi is much smaller and I have not > > installed the packages that will enable its wifi yet, so thats one > > of the bits of info I need since I do have a wifi, but its > > restricted to matching MAC addresses before it connects.. > > > > So the monitor/keyboard/mouse will be connected to the O-Pi, the two > > will be linked by the wifi, so that the R-Pi takes orders from the > > O-Pi's keyboard, and the x data from running linuxcnc -l on the R-Pi > > will come back to the O-Pi over the wifi link and be rendered and > > displayed on the O-Pi's monitor. > > > > This will no doubt involve two different local 192.168.xx.nn network > > setups. > > > > Have any of you done that, or am I walking on unplowed ground and > > doomed to fail? > > What you are proposing is pretty common. It's the "normal" way that > I'd assume most Pi-type computers are used. The term is "headless" > that means no monitor/keyboard/mouse is attached to the computer. > Almost all servers in server rooms are headless also, then the admin > it this office can access all the servers without leaving his desk. > > The thing that is different in your setup (and I'm wondering why) is > you are using a small computer for the display. Why not use a > full-power PC. The graphics can be much better/faster on PC hardware > and you likely already have on one your desk.
Because I don't feel at all comfortable running any of this machinery from far enough away I cannot see it run, hence the keyboard/mouse/monitor within 2 or 3 feet of the running machine. Yes, its a personal requirement, but how else can I see that its about to cut a clamp in two, or wreck a $500 chuck. Once the code has been proven, and if making lots of copies of the same part by using a pallet holder so its fully repeatable, I might consider it. But making mostly one-offs as I scratch my itches, I must be able to see the machine move from close enough I can hit the kill switch, hopefully before something on the machine is damaged, or $30 worth of tooling is in 7 pieces. > I use an Apple 27" iMac for the display and keyboard for both my Pi > and the X86 Linux box(s). > > Each computer only needs one IP address. I could not see why you > wanted a second network. OK, if you have both Ethernet and WiFi then > you have two IP addresses but you really only need on e interface. > I am not married to my idea, and I do have an x86 box, an old P4 Dell that actually does that job fairly well, but I''l have to clear off a spot high on a storage rack about 4 feet away just to get the monitor close enough. And these Dell's are hungry, whereas the O-Pi is less than 10 watts. That of course in colder weather is a wash because the computers contribute to heating the garage, which is pretty well insulated. In the dead of winter, a pair of 1.5 kw heaters keep it t-shirt comfy when there was no computers in it as the mill hadn't arrived yet. And I turned off the radio in my main router today, no doubt upsetting the neighbors with smart phones but my net bandwidth went up 60Gb a month last month, and when I looked into dd-wrt, I found 3 androids logged in. I could cancel their "lease" and all 3 of them would be back on in 10 seconds. And one of them was sucking 50 to 60 megabytes a minute! So I just turned the radio off. Problem solved. But the wifi I was refering to was assuming the antennas were about 6 to 8" apart, inside a closed steel box. Talking only to each other, which is a faster circuit than ethernet. OTOH, I just setup a gigabit switch out there tonight, serving as an extension hub on the only cable entering the garage on a direct from this main switch in here cable. So maybe that will speed things up by giving a direct gigabit connection. But I need to get this #$%^& encoder rebuilt with the ATS667's facing the gear before I can do anything else, too darned many irons in the fire... Plus I need to find a safe path thru the spindle housing to run its cable out of. I may just drill a hole in the front of the base pan casting. Ugly but expedient. > It takes a while to get used to X11. I first encountered it in the > 1980's. At first people think the terms client and server are > backwards but you get around that. Then you start thinking, Can I > have multiple X11 displays on one computers (yes) and the data go over > the Internet so some one else can see my computer and log in to help > fix stuff (yes) I wonder if VNC would work in place of X11 (almost > as good) can I find X-Server software for Microsoft Windows, to my Pi > can send it's display to a Windows PC (yes) to a Mac (yes) to another > Linux/UNIX machine (of course)... > > The next thing you find out is that the little Pi that drives the > machine tool does not need its own SD card, or any local storage. > With no local storage there is nothing to backup and if the little i > dies replacement is simple too. Its setup to use the SD card now, with the active nc_files directory sshfs mounted from this machine, so the sd will get little write activity once fully setup. But its a 32Gb so it can take a lot of writes before it upchucks. Cheers Chris, Gene Heskett -- "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed Howdershelt (Author) Genes Web page <http://geneslinuxbox.net:6309/gene> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Developer Access Program for Intel Xeon Phi Processors Access to Intel Xeon Phi processor-based developer platforms. With one year of Intel Parallel Studio XE. Training and support from Colfax. Order your platform today. http://sdm.link/xeonphi _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
