Dell Latitude

Want to buy a s/h W7 laptop which may (but not essential) run Mach.

I seem to remember reference to a Dell Latitude machine in an earlier thread but cannot find the thread and a bewildering choice out there!

Peter

Peter, If you read the manuals for Mach 3 it is suggested that you will get a better performance with a desktop computer rather than a laptop. Some have found problems using laptops while others have not so it is a 'suck it and see' situation. If you read this thread:

https://www.machsupport.com/forum/index.php?topic=5981.0

it may help in your choice

Les

Thanks Les. I've seen a lot of replies on a similar theme so went for a pc but its getting very old now and wondered what the current situation was as the post is from 2008.

Spoke to someone recently who was doing it all from a tablet with no issues but that sounds a bit far fetched!

Peter

I run Mach3 turn on an old Toshiba laptop and Mach3 mill on an old HP laptop both through a USB Smooth Stepper and XP without problems.

Martin C

I run Mach3 turn on an old Toshiba laptop and Mach3 mill on an old HP laptop both through a USB Smooth Stepper and XP without problems.

Martin C

Peter, you don't say what you may want to run with Mach 3 but if you are building a system you can use a motion control card which will connect with the computer's USB port (or ethernet) and it then doesn't matter what laptop you use.

Les

Thanks for the replies. Its an older Sieg KX3 running with the parallel port on the ancient pc so was planning to go motion control? If that makes sense!

Peter

What's wrong with the old computer? O.K. XP is no longer supported but if it is working and not connected to the internet you don't need updates.

Im using a second hand Dell Optiplex running XP and Mach 3/parallel port works fine.

Russell.

I have one of the older KX3 machines currently running on a HP desktop with Windows 7 but like you, think that a USB motion control board is the way to go now that parallel ports are rare on computers. I will be very interested interested to hear how you get on with the modification to the KX3.

Les

Thanks for the replies, good to see the variety of machines that are working with Mach.

I use Vectric Vcarve and if I occasionally want to alter a drawing it takes an age with my existing computer hence the addition of a laptop might improve things a bit.

I've also got an offer of some Ardunio tuition but then I haven't got a laptop so it may be useful for that as well.

Peter

My understanding is that the laptop problem is caused by the power-saving settings. Laptops are usually set up to shut down after a while with no keyboard activity, in order to save battery power, and the CNC equipment forgets who it is, where it is, and what it's doing.

If you go into the power setting menu and tell it never to shut down while idle, I believe you can solve the problem. I have a couple of (ex school) Dell Latitude laptops, designed for XP but running W7, and have had no problems with them.

George

As I've said before, as long as you get a quad core, (2.5GHZ minimum), preferably 4GB of RAM, and if possible get a solid state hard drive, then your machine will run pretty much anything OK

XP will be easier to configure but win 7 will communicate better with stuff like smartphones

Pete, as George says you can change the machine's profile. I think I changed my laptops' profiles to desktops and set all the power saving off or to very long times. They never run on battery power (the batteries are probably useless by now anyway) so there is no problem doing this. They are not connected to the internet so never get updates but no hacking or malware either.

Martin C

I think it was me that mentioned the Dell Latitude. Good machine imho. I use Win 7. However it will not run Mach 3 in its native motion control mode as it doesn't have a parallel port. It certainly runs Mach 3 in simulation mode so you can test gcode etc, I do that frequently. I believe that laptops will run Mach 3 through USB, or better Ethernet, to a motion control card such as smoothstepper provided you adjust the power save settings.

You can get things like USB to parallel port adaptors on a well known site for under a fiver

ADY1, they don't work with Mach3. They can't do the timing.

Martin C