> From: Jon Elson [mailto:el...@pico-systems.com] > On 12/13/2020 03:15 AM, Robert Murphy wrote: > > > > The reason for the switch from MK to Linuxcnc, the > > Linuxcnc project just > > has a better feel, IMHO, and the forum appears to have > > more members that > > use it in a commercial setting. I'm not saying that the > > former statement > > is gospel. > > > Yes, MachineKit is great if you want to run CNC on a very > small, cheap set of boards. > But, the MachineKit software project is almost moribund, > there has been VERY little > further development. I think that is sad, they had some > VERY exciting ideas, but some of them might have been hard > to implement. > > LinuxCNC is still being very actively developed, with daily > commits to the repository. > My main CNC machine is a Bridgeport, so having extremely > compact control hardware is not so > important. > > Jon
I agree Jon. Unless you are running a Unimat DB-200 or even a small 7x12 lathe the size of the control system really isn't a big deal. And now with the Pi4 and LinuxCNC the Beagle is even less of a valid choice although Robert's boards did remove the need for a BoB. As for development on MachineKit. Exactly what development are we really talking about? When I ran the Beagle with the Xylotex board on the mill it behaved, from my perspective, exactly the same as the Pi4 with LinuxCNC 2.8. Maybe it was missing the ability to create 'soft links' that 99.99% of users wouldn't care about or even know how to use? <GRIN> But seriously, there are those embedded into the world of rebuilding an OS on a regular basis and having fun with that. And there are those who just want electronics so they can make parts. Although I have a Comp. Sci. degree I'm of the latter group. Rebuilding the software all the time is way too much like work-work. Making chips from castings of patterns I've made is what I enjoy. Quick story and then I'll be quiet. I have a Raspberry Pi2 running OctoPrint driving a cheap 3D Cartesian printer which is run with a small 8 bit Arduino based controller. USB from the Pi to the controller. It has one of those 4 line LCD displays and an array of 5 buttons for all the local control; a pain to use. Even a small camera on the Pi2 so I can watch progress remotely. I treat this 3D printer like I tread my table saw. I turn it on. Clean off the dust. Home it and turn on the bed heater to bring it up to temperature. A short while later in another room I drag and drop the gcode file, double click on it to load it ready for printing. Run the home routines once more and when I see the Z axis has finished turning click on Print. I may go out to the sunroom where the printer lives a few times but otherwise when the bed has cooled below 30C the part lifts off the glass and I start another print or shut it down. So here's the important part of the story. I made the mistake of clicking yes on an Octoprint upgrade request. Big mistake. Rather than first test the version of the OS before updating the code the Octoprint broke the OS. I lost all my settings and ultimately had to install the latest OS with Octoprint and start over. When I complained I was told it was my fault for not running the latest OS all the time. Not her problem she said. Wasn't mine after that either. I stopped my monthly financial support and the system has been stable ever since. Upgrades are no longer done nor needed nor wanted. So the question for MachineKit on a Beagle with something like Robert's boards. How is MachineKit worse than LinuxCNC for a small mill or lathe? For the those writing the software there's a _need_ or _hunger_ to have the biggest/fastest development machine and latest OS. That results very quickly in code bloat and software that then runs poorly on the smaller older machines. And the circle continues as users then have to upgrade hardware to run what used to be fast because now it doesn't have enough memory or is slow. That's because rather than design for the smallest slowest machine they design for the latest and the evil upgrade cycle continues. I'll be the first to agree that the Beagle video sucks. Especially compared to a purpose built Pi for high speed video support. The add on boards that duplicate a BoB for a Beagle are less than the lowest cost MESA plus BoB combination. But given the pile of broken or chipped milling cutters I have in one box, that cost is minor. So after a certain point the investment into the CNC side is also minor. But if you are running a smaller VGA size monitor that works and was free and video speed isn't a big criteria why not MachineKit and the BBB? One only has to look at the under $300 milling machine controllers out of China with LCD display and a few buttons to see that the market is there for that sort of hardware. An open source hardware/software solution (excludes Pi which isn't open source hardware) with a 7" or even 10" LCD touch screen and a raft of buttons running MachineKit or LinuxCNC would be a better gift to the market than an ever increasing in size LinuxCNC running on a yet another flavour of standalone board which is discontinued after the first production run. The 4D Systems LCD display cape for the Beagle is a great example of that. Bought one. No support. Discontinued. And so on... John _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
