Jon Elson wrote:
wrote:
Anyway I am at the point of getting either LinuxCNC or Mach3. In your
opinion is it worth the money for Mach3. I am already using Ubuntu so
Linux or Windows no big deal.
Dan
If you already know your way around Linux, then go with LinuxCNC.
It is more flexible and configurable that Mach. The only thing that
Mach has is their "screensets" which allow you to configure your screen
so it looks like a pinball machine. I have never understood the
point of this. Totally baffled. The Axis screen does all I need,
makes perfect sense, and all I have added is a spindle RPM display to the
side.
Mach3 has plenty of flexibility and scripting capability to handle such
custom things as ATCs and most anything else you can think of. Mach3 is
also free to try out and free to use if you can live with the 2,000
lines of G code at a time which is the only limitation in the demo
version.
Mach has a slight advantage to higher step pulse rates with software
step generation, which I don't really like, anyway, it is putting a
horrible burden on the CPU when there are much better ways to make
step pulses.
With today's multi-core CPUs and microwave level clock rates, the burden
is pretty negligible.
LinuxCNC has the ability to use servos in a number of ways,
rigid tapping and non-cartesian machines.
Yep. Rigid tapping is nice, and I believe people have successfully used
it in Mach3 (I've not tried) as well since the key requirement for rigid
tapping is a spindle encoder, not servos. Non-cartesian machines are
neat to read about, but few people actually build or use them.