Member postings for Another JohnS

I don't know. It takes energy to get the materials to make them, then energy to make the blades, energy to move them, to place them, to remove them, to ship them back, and, finally, to take them apart.

Might it not be easier to just use less energy?

I know that it's not a popular view these days; the current trend seems to be using more energy to solve "the climate crisis".

Gosh - that reads like it's a "Baah Humbug" moment!

Ed - thanks for the write-up.

I've got 3 CNC machines here (although one is a little Sherline lathe, was going to CNC an Emco Compact-8 but never got around to it so sold it on)

All 3 machines have small dedicated PCs running LinuxCNC with Mesa cards. Only a trackball-mouse as input, no keyboard. Right now, no network. I take stuff via USB from my office to my workshop. Machines boot on power, so I turn on power to the machine, it boots. All 3 computers have identical hardware.

Two have been running for years, no issues, although work/life has taken me from the workshop quite a bit over the last year or two. The Sherline lathe is the one that has not had much time; currently no spindle encoder. (was thinking of just taking a MASSO one from Sherline and using that) so not a lot of experience with a dedicated lathe, unfortunately.

LinuxCNC did go through a bad spell - real-time modules changed, and the new one is not (from what I understand) that great with the old parallel port one-byte-at-a-time protocol.

I think that, our small club here in Ottawa, of those with working CNC metal working machines in their workshop, 100% are LinuxCNC.

Each to their own, of course, there's no 100% correct solution to anything.

Dave - if you (or anyone else) wants to see what can be done on Sherline equipment, have a look at:

Chris and his Kozo Shay build

over at modelnginemaker.com This fellow hails from NY state in the USA, and makes more in a day than many of us make in a year.

I made an "old Shay" from Kozo Hiraoka's plans; mainly on an Eco Compact-8, so when I followed along on how he made the "new Shay" on Sherline equipment (including cutting gears from brass) needless to say, I was both humbles and impressed.

Michael;

I, too, have a Sherline CNC lathe and mill. They were purchased for a potential house downsizing (moving to a smaller place), but that's been put on hold because of COVID, so not used as much (yet) as I had originally planned.

I've got bigger CNC mills, and use the same software. I've actually got 2 sets of software; I use Linux for work from home and one of my desktops, I also use Apple computers for software development. So, saying that:

On Linux, CamBam, and QCad, CamBam can do some lathe CAM, which has worked well with the Sherline lathe.

On Windows (which probably has not been booted in 6 months) Alibre Atom3D, and, if I remember the name correctly, Meshcam.

I just never turn on the windows computer, the Linux one is booted 24/7, so I use the 2D CAD/CAM system 100% of the time. I have tried (successfully) to run Windows in a virtual machine under Linux; it worked, but is slow and not as responsive as I'd have liked. The 2D CAD setup does things well enough for the parts I'm making.

Hope some of the above helps! John

Wandering a little bit here.

I had a Tinker once - made by a Frank McLean, who wrote in Live Steam and has a book of his articles available from Village Press. He was the first tool designer and machinist for Lee Valley, some here might recognize the company.

I actually never used it - shortly after I purchased it, I had to move around the world (to NZ) for work; lent it and some other tools to a fellow club member who was very short of retirement funds, who subsequently passed away and the contents of his workshop auctioned off to other club members. When I returned, I found the workshop equipment I had lent in other peoples' workshops, and they had paid $$ for it so were not returning it.

Long story short - I built a Worden, 100x better, and I'd think Harold Hall's jigs are equal or better than the Tinker, if you want to use a standard bench grinder as a base.

I use CNC extensively in my workshop. (when I get in there, that is!)

I figure that it is like the change from making parts to fit, to making parts that fit. No longer any need to stamp mating parts for assembly, the parts just fit.

Look at the Sherline CNC products, although they have gone now to an expensive CNC controller. I do have a CNC-ready Sherline lathe and 5400 mill, but have only used them for manual machining at this point. (have 2 cnc mills, a KX1 and a larger one, both LinuxCNC driven, that work well)

I am a real fan of LinuxCNC; each mill has a small computer with monitor and one of those track-ball mice things (no keyboard) so they are self-contained. When I turn power on to the electrical socket for the mill, the computer boots in a few seconds, and bobs' your uncle - ready to go.

Just for the fun of it - circa 2014-2015, when the organization I worked for was in upheaval, I was asked (an Internet protol and app guy) to work with RF frequency guys to put forth ideas for increasing throughput on cell phones.

Anyway, I created this picture - Wired magazine with Andrew Snowden on the "cover", and a utility to show where tracking connections went - I figured that about 80% of the data transported was "fluff", 20% real-user-wished-for data.

Needless to say, the report was thrown out - these RF guys wanted RF ideas, not caring about the amount of data.

I'm sure the tracking, etc is much worse now. The red names are the sites that the tool reported as being "fluff"

"You are decending by vertical lift into a very deep coal mine and the only light is from a safety (Davey/Stephenson) lamp. The rope fails and the cage free falls to the bottom of the shaft. What happens to the light from safety lamp before you die? Comment: This has everything to do with gravity and weightlessness"

In the absence of "gravity induced" air flow, the lamp would go out. Now, how you'd have oxygen and no air flow in a vertical lift in free-fall, *that* is an interesting question!

Another interesting question - if you have liquid fuel, are in free-fall (say, in geostationary orbit) and are "weightless", how do you fire up a rocket engine? I mean, the fuel will just be floating about, not waiting at the bottom of the tank to flow into the engines...

My KX1 has been running with LinuxCNC, a Mesa 5i25 and a Gecko G540 (parallel version) for about a decade so far.

Both of these products now come with Ethernet connectivity, if you want to go down that route. The Mesa 7i76 card has (if I remember correctly) 5 step control outputs, so you can have x,y,z,a and spindle if indeed that is what you require.

Do you really require a pulse stream for the spindle? Mine has a board inside that drives the spindle from a 0-10v isolated input - here is a link to the control board: little machine shop board. I know it's the same board because LittleMachineShop used to distribute MY old blog info with this board without attribution.

(The KX1 I have came without control electronics, (had steppers, limit switches, spindle speed control board) the late John Stevenson and I discussed this via email, and it seems mine was an "internal to China" model, so I just added it all. Spindle control was via the typical 0-10v input as stated above)

John.

I keep finding Windows amazing. I'll admit to not using it much, because I seem more comfortable with Linux and MacOS on my desktop machines.

On both Mac and Linux, if you have searchable PDFs (i.e. ones with text, not just a giant image) all one needs to do is to open the file finder, and in the search box, type the text you are looking for. Voila.

It's so simple, so useful, just to search all files for the text.

Or, did I miss something? Likely, knowing me.

Assuming both are on the same physical disc. Boot in Linux.

Open a terminal window. type:

sudo update-grub

should do it. It should find the Windows partition, and put it in the GRUB boot sequence. This is the "boot loader" that runs when the system boots. Linux will find Windows, Windows will not find Linux. Of course.

IF NOT:

If you have differing "boot bios" UEFI settings, tell me. I had to do this a little while ago - my Windows disc was installed in "DOS" mode, my Linux in UEFI, and I had to (simply) re-do the Windows one to be seen as UEFI. I'll see if I can find my notes. I had 2 discs; maybe if you have only 1 this might not be a problem. (I'm NOT an expert here!)

I run my 3 LinuxCNC based machines on old intel D525MW boards; 4gig RAM. These are dual-core 1800 mhz (or so) boards.

I have a MESA 5i25 card in each of them. In theory, they are identical for quick swapping.

Bazyle - stepper timing is fairly critical; using the "old, dumb" parallel port requires pretty exact timing; if you use a card that off-loads the critical timing stuff, almost any computer will do. (card can be plug-in, or via ethernet)

The MESA 5i25 cards (if you go that route) are pretty much plug-n-play, but be sure to order the one you wish; they are "flashed" with a configuration to match the attached device. I've re-flashed one; quite easy. 2 of my cards are for "parallel port" to Gecko G540 stepper driver boxes, one to a "Mesa 7i76 I/O card".

I did start a CNC conversion of my 2nd Emco Compact-8 lathe, put on a 3-phase motor, but work got in the way, and I inherited a little Sherline. 2nd Emco sold on, but kept the 3-phase.

You can find articles in Model Engineer by me, designed to show simple 2D CAD to CNC to actual parts; I don't have the issue numbers at hand. (yes Jason, 2D CAD; hopefully as a first step to get people going with CNC)

Of possible interest: I don't have a pillar drill anymore, but have 4 vertical mills. One of my CNC mills, if I want to manually drill, I just use that. It boots quickly, spindle control is a breeze, and I have a DRO if I want it for accurate manual placing of holes.

In my workshop, these LinuxCNC things just work. I don't worry about them; they have proven themselves incredibly reliable.

Keep going gentlemen! Hopefully 2021 will bring CNC to more of our workshops; whether LinuxCNC or some other program doesn't really matter. It's the learning and experimentation and production that matters.

John.

Joe - the Real Time package for Linux has changed; as LinuxCNC (especially if driving one of the inexpensive breakout boards) needs realtime so that signals come and go without varying latency. It seems like it's fairly settled now.

That first ISO, on the top of the page is one that I would use.

Just download the iso, burn it to a USB, and boot. You should be able (if it is as it was) to run LinuxCNC directly, without installing it, just to test drive it.

32 or 64 bit - don't worry about it. Try that ISO on the top of the page.

(Am I pushing? Well, Tormach went from Mach to LinuxCNC-based software, and paid $$ for work on the trajectory planner in LinuxCNC, so why not use what a successful company uses?? They also use MESA hardware, so you are following fairly closely a known, successful path)

Joe;

on all of my machines, I use the MESA 5i25 cards. I use the parallel ("printer" cable option.

On one machine (a small CNC lathe) I use a Gecko G540; on my older Seig KX1, the same.

On my larger mill, and ex-project CNC lathe, a MESA 7i76.

(I hate giving advice, so use your judgment )

I think for you, a MESA 5i25 and 7i76 combo. It gives you lots of stepper outputs, lots of signal outputs, inputs, spindle encoder, "0-10v isolated" spindle control, etc, etc. Way more i/o than you'll need, but better too much than too little. You've got the brains to figure out a) what you need i/o wise, and b) what else you can do once you have it running.

There is a "plug-n-go kit" for the combination:

http://store.mesanet.com/index.php?route=product/product&path=83_84&product_id=215

Anyway, my 0.02c - it's what I use and I find it well supported and incredibly reliable.

And, if it matters, my 3 machines are running an old Intel board, dual-core, obsolete from about 6 years ago; more than enough power to run the machines, with i/o, MPG controllers, touch probes, 4th axes, and so on.

John.

Joe;

http://linuxcnc.org/downloads/

lists an ISO download.

I do know that there was an issue going from one real-time kernel to a newer one; this gave the LinuxCNC team a bit of an issue. Looks like it's solved.

Note that with "smart" cards like the MESA ones, perfect real-time is not required; with the old parallel port, servicing that port did require quick and timely response. (I use the MESA cards in all of my machines)

I can fully understand the frustration when LinuxCNC was going through that real-time transition, but with an ISO, maybe it'll install nicely. Knowing what I do from seeing your work here, I'd expect that once it is running, and you comprehend the flexibility, you'll be very happy.

Whatever you do, keep doing, and (especially) keep posting!

John.

Joe;

As you may not (yet) know, Tormach PathPilot is basically LinuxCNC with a simple install and conversational programming -enabled GUI by default.

The potential issue is setting the correct ports/cards for your system; Tormach sells it configured for their machines. They have a new lathe on the market.

It used to be (have not looked at in a while) that it used MESA cards; I'd assume it is still the same.

Last I read, you can get it on a USB stick. Maybe worth a look, and a web search for others using it.

By the way, yes, LinuxCNC seems to have gone through a bit of a rough patch with documentation and install, but once you figure it out, the thing *just works*. Incredible piece of software. (I have 3 machines with SSD drives and dedicated computers; flick the power switch by the machine, the PC boots, and you are good to go)

One of my mills, with a two-step pulley system on the spindle; I have it automatically figure out what "gear" it is in, and adjust accordingly, thus if you ask for (say) 1,000 rpm, you get it, as close as the sensor, etc, can get it.

Ok, that makes more sense - I left high-school (Canada) in 1978 and University in 1982, and a lot changed in that time. That's how I remember time-frames - In high school it was the 1802 and 8080, by the end of University, it was totally changed. Things went quickly back then. (I guess they do today, too).

Many years ago, I was on an overnight train (would have been autumn/winter 1982, maybe spring 1983) I went on an overnight train here in Canada (almost 9 hours long journey), almost nobody on it. My task was to further a S-100 bus-based 1802/8085 computer, wire-wrapped. The old crusty conductor (they were all crusty old conductors back then) came by and said in the typical gruff voice "What you building, a Bomb??" I said "Yeah", his answer "Good luck" and kept on walking, checking to see if anyone was likely going to give him trouble.

These days, that cocky little kid would be taken down by a SWAT team or something equivalent.

Sigh!

Well, my shared Virtual Reality stuff is in the Canadian Science and Tech museum; I can confirm that by the time I created this stuff, we were well and truly into Hexadecimal.

(I remember the 68008 being released - are you sure about the decade? I would have pegged it later; in the 70s, it was almost all 8 bit processors, if I remember that far back correctly) (no matter, those were the fun days; I loved the 1802 because as a kid, I could single step it and debug the hardware with only a really inexpensive analogue volt meter)

Dear SOD;

Sure, Python's great, I use it a bit at work. However, I have to use C99; Shader work and OpenCL Kernels require this. (have to run on older code platforms sometimes, sticking to OpenCL, OpenGL for the moment)

Your request is tailored to using a language like Python; if I reworded it to something like "find ALL the palindromes in the set [0->2,147,483,647] and return a flag indicating which one is set" then I'd win hands-down, especially with a good graphics card.

BR - JohnS.

I have one, from 2014 which is not very good. It's been sitting collecting dust for a couple of years now.

At work, I had the use of a Stratasys, but that lab's closed down. Every once in a while I think of picking another one up for home, but... (have CNC metalworking machines and a lack of time for *those*...)

Here's a picture of my Printrbot Simple - laser cut wood, Dremel sanding disks and fishing line for axis drives... Was High Tech at the time!