Maybe being the original posterre the article I can come back – I did try to find via the Electronic Artisan and Lester’s own website if the components etc were still available but couldn’t see them tho there were circuit diagrams (luckily my background is here) + some software – I realised from the choice of PIC processor that the the design predated the now ubiquitous ARM processors but both web sites esp EA seem to have many noncompleted sections that date back many years (hence my comment re feeling that I felt 20years back in web sites – as a one person large website owner on a completely different topic I’m only too aware of starting a topic only to find time, knowledge + enthusiasm are lacking)

My real surprise was that as Neil had pushed the article 4 weeks or so prior to seeing it in print that there would appear to have been no check on or co-ordination with the sites referenced as providing the constructional meat. I guess I could apply to join the yahoo closed group (tho I dislike yahoo) but everything seems highly distributed on the web (and I suspect now of an age where key bits are missing)

I'm not sure I understand this part of your comment – can you explain further?

Are you talking about turnkey solutions, or software, or… ?

I'm currently machining with my little CNC lathe, and I've seen the Tormach lathe, and, if you go to the CNC Workshop in Michigan this coming June, you can join in the CNC Lathe build classes.

I understand that Mach3 has design issues with threading, but LinuxCNC has been rock solid for a good number of years now. Mach4 is said to be better than Mach3, but I have not seen any evidence one way or the other – time will tell.

I'll repeat my assertions – that if you go to the expense of the ELS, you might as well go to full CNC – but will state that my computer skills are "in demand" so for what (for me) is easy and natural, might not be for others, so I'm more than willing to be told to "stuff it"!

> I realised from the choice of PIC processor that the the design predated the now ubiquitous ARM processors

Eight bit computing will never die!

Neil

I've looked at Linux CNC several times. What seems to be lacking to me is an easy intro to doing things with it. I have used Linux for a long long time and am still not comfortable with what I see concerning Linux CNC. It seems to be stuck rather high end and more pro user based than beginners.

I also have a feeling that in some respects it's a bit dated and isn't capable of using a number of approaches that could be used very cheaply these days. On the other hand it uses the Linux real time kernel which is designed up front to have low latency response times – something wndows and others will probably never match.

Maybe one day some group of talented people will pick it up and do something radical with it. That has happened in one other area mainly because Linux is also happy on a rasbury pi doing things a few years ago people might have thought was impossible. Actually this sort of thing only takes one rather determined individual.

John

–

And sell it – actually I think that should be against the law unless they seriously contribute to open source software as well. On the other hand some commercial work mainly by the people who issue the various distro's do contribute significantly.

Even Microsoft contributed once – can't help wondering if there was an ulterior motive. They support some Linux disc formats on windows server but only to try and get people to migrate – fat chance in many cases.

Whoops meant to add that wasn't what I meant at all.

John

–

Edited By Ajohnw on 24/03/2016 18:39:02

Where is the code ? It doesn't show up here, bottom of the page showing things that were signed off into the kernel

**LINK**

John

–

John.

It's not Linux per see but Linux CNC which is based on Ubuntu.

The changes that Tormach have put it are quite extensive and if you go to their site somewhere for $30 you can buy a restore disk that will restore a genuine Tormach installation.

However they have to protect their investment and it's for a Tormach machine only but many people have worked out how to run it on non-Tormach machines but we are back to geeks now.

Time will tell if a non Tormach install disk will surface, the problem being who benefits with it being a non chargeable open source project.

Long short is, it can be done and has been.

I think there is a lot of miss understanding about Linux and software John which explain some of the problems you have mentioned. Starting at the bottom

The kernel. This is the part that runs all of the basic facilities in the machine and also looks after running software at all levels. Things do have to go through a "committee" to get things in there. This is basically why it's fast. Linux cnc is based on a patched kernel that is modified to suite it's major purpose in life – cnc. A patch is just a modification to some areas of the code. The word patch signifies how big it's likely to be. There isn't much scope for mounds of code down here. The "committee" at this level are rather specialised but are mostly dealing with hardware and in some respects don't care at all what people do with it, There concern is servicing all of it without overloading the machine. Try to add something that may interfere with that and it has no chance of getting in. Sometimes there are commercial complications as well. Only one I can think of is a Philips web cam. The person who handled that actually coded the web cam and what's in it belongs to Philips so he can't really declare how it works.

Then comes things that are rather like dll's but might be doing all sorts of things. Generally they will make application software easier to write. These too have a "committee" and can be a bit mixed up with the next level.

That's what most people see as windows but are called desktops on linux as there are a number of them. These can stray. The aim of one that is ongoing is to make application writing even easier. Many contain graphical aspects that are similar to "dll's". The term committee has little meaning here, and not much lower down either. People come and go and are often only there because they want it to do something.

Then comes application software. These are invariably written by some one who wants it as is just about all of the rest other than maybe the kernel. They come and go and often change when some one else wants something to do the same thing. People often stop maintaining things because there isn't much interest and they have done what they wanted to do. It's not unusual for a number of individuals to be working on totally different applications that are intended to do exactly the same thing. It's both the strength and weakness of Linux really and all down to people doing things that they want to do for fun, to do better or what ever.

What this boils down to is that the bits you see and use in Linux CNC will have been written by some one who is into both and not really a geek at all. The problem is that there doesn't seem to be anyone around who wants to change it and in real terms there wont be a "comittee" for Tormach to submit anything to and by the sounds of it that wouldn't be to the kernel anyway. This touches on why I suggested that it's a bit dated. Requesting fixes is the same. It needs someone to come along that for some reason feels like doing the work – usually some one who wants it.

Actually it sounds like Tormach did the correct thing. They didn't like something so they wrote some code to do what they want. The usual thing to do with code like that is to stick it on souceforge for a start along with some documentation or github. Linuxcnc probably has one of those all to itself but it still needs some one who wants to pick it up and use it.

It's amazing it all works at all when the whole area is considered – sometimes it doesn't for a while. That to is until some one wants to fix it. Disto's make their own changes at all levels as well.

The use of Linux does annoy me at times because it's tucked away all over the place and saves companies an awful amount of time and cost yet generally they don't give anything back. A lot of software is also hijacked along with a name change and sold.

John

–

> god know how many unrelated and unattached wiki pages that exist for Linux CNC

My heart sinks whenever I discover that something I want to understand has 'wiki based' documentation. Most of the time its really just 'dump everything on the web and let people use google to find what they need'.

What you have to watch out for is anything with support via stack exchange – you will be flamed if you don't spnd three days learning how to ask a question properly first…

Neil

Your eyes will glaze over even more when you see where new code should go along with builds to go with it. It's here

**LINK**

I did watch the video and no amount of next move prediction would improve the g code. It would have to scan the lots and arrange things in a sensible order. That really would be a bit of a challenge. I also thought that the visuals were pretty naff really and could easily be better. Probably will be one day.

If I put my software hat on and was asked to produce something that predicted the next move I would immediately think bull 'hit as the next move is in the g code and do something entirely different if I did anything at all. I can understand why no one would want to pick up something like that. Not with the objective name suggests as an aim anyway. I'd know that I would be wasting my time.

The real problem is that for casual users it's never reached the desktop level. Probably down to little need for those that use it. They can write decent G code. They are going to be more interested in how it performs and it sound like Tormak should be very pleased that they have done it as it will have saved them a hell of a lot of work.

If they want to engage with the people that actually do it this is one place to start

**LINK**

As there is more interest these days I wouldn't bother using any of the others and anything posted on there might generate suggestions that it needs to go to the dev people. There probably is a route. Might just be a mailing list

Doc's are always a problem on Linux applications as it changes so quickly at times. Sometime radically. If you can't cope take up knitting instead.

Actually the gui doc's don't look to bad. Nor does the interface actually but as it covers rather a lot of options there may be rather a lot of variations.

**LINK**

My original comment about it being old hat really wasn't associated with either Neil's John S's comments. I just think that these days the whole approach is wrong but it does save rather a lot of work as it's there.

John

–