[mpack]

i dont see any support [ in the Beagle Bone ] for a monitor. limits its uses a fair bit.

There is mention of an HDMI daughterboard being available.

[ihavenofish]

There is mention of an HDMI daughterboard being available.

at that point though your at a higher price than many regular pc's, with not many advantages.

[zool]

KuchateK: "If controller + software + PC costs $400 it will never happen."

I am building my second 3-axis CNC router, which is designed to be a 6-axis machine eventually. I have approximately $5000 in the frame, rails, carriages, stepper motors [including spares], wiring, nuts and bolts, labor and materials for building a variety of parts, e-track, miscellaneous electrical and electronic parts.

I have a gecko G540 and 50-volt power supply. I use MACH3, its quirky, but I have got it stable. I use Alibre and Sketchup Pro. I use Cam Bam.

The Dell computer [included monitor, KB and mouse] I got free, and I bought and installed two parallel ports, plus a very good video card. The operating system is Windows 2000.

I design and build furniture.

Given the above facts and circumstances, $400 is pocket change.

Time does have value.

"Cheap" is very expensive.

Though the RPI appears to be very cool, I care not until its been proven, it and all related technologies are accessible, easy, reliable and dependable. And all the aforementioned plays nice with ALL CNC-related software; i.e., CAD, CAM, controllers, and the many add-ons thereto.

Lots of very cool pieces of technology have come and gone.

Sure looks like a lot of folks [and you all are really smart and clever] see the leaves and trees, though are missing the forest.

[crane550]

KuchateK: "If controller + software + PC costs $400 it will never happen."

I am building my second 3-axis CNC router, which is designed to be a 6-axis machine eventually. I have approximately $5000 in the frame, rails, carriages, stepper motors [including spares], wiring, nuts and bolts, labor and materials for building a variety of parts, e-track, miscellaneous electrical and electronic parts.

I have a gecko G540 and 50-volt power supply. I use MACH3, its quirky, but I have got it stable. I use Alibre and Sketchup Pro. I use Cam Bam.

The Dell computer [included monitor, KB and mouse] I got free, and I bought and installed two parallel ports, plus a very good video card. The operating system is Windows 2000.

I design and build furniture.

Given the above facts and circumstances, $400 is pocket change.

Time does have value.

"Cheap" is very expensive.

Though the RPI appears to be very cool, I care not until its been proven, it and all related technologies are accessible, easy, reliable and dependable. And all the aforementioned plays nice with ALL CNC-related software; i.e., CAD, CAM, controllers, and the many add-ons thereto.

Lots of very cool pieces of technology have come and gone.

Sure looks like a lot of folks [and you all are really smart and clever] see the leaves and trees, though are missing the forest.

Yes, YOU have spend a lot of money on your machine....but not every has. This is not meant to control a $50,000 machine. It's made to control high school projects, Repraps, Makerbots, PCB mills, and in general smaller products where price is a factor.

If someone was to produce a software repository or a linux distro that would run on the RPi I have no doubt in my mind it would sell like hot-cakes.

$25 for the Rpi
Lets me generous and assign $50 to a breakout board....wer are not looking at a $75 solution. Add a mouse and monitor which most people already have and your good to go.

Now all of the sudden this is looking like a good solution. Most makerbot guys, bench top mills, PCB etchers and such don't usually have a dedicated PC anyways. This is something that makes these devices a lot more portable.

It is rather arrogant to point out the impracticality of a device like this in the industrial market. It's not the point. This is exactly the same as some filthy rich man ridiculing some farmer and his beloved old pickup because it does not have the refinements of a Bentley. Peoples needs are different. Everyone needs to grasp this. For the longest time I had a guy ridiculing my current machine because it didn't have the tolerances of the industrial chip manufactoring equiptment at his company. Sheesh! Really?

I'm getting tired of us arguing the merits of a device like this. I would like to see some of the supporters of this project start moving towards implementation. I got some linux nerds in my family I will talk to over this next weekend and get some educated takes on this on what needs to be done. It's been well demonstrated that this project is possible. Lets find out how to make it work. Nay sayers please start your own thread.

[mpack]

If someone was to produce a software repository or a linux distro that would run on the RPi I have no doubt in my mind it would sell like hot-cakes.

I assume you're aware that there are (off the top of my head) three Linux distros already ported to the RPi, and available as sdcard image downloads from the RPi website.

However, I believe one of these would have to be adapted to use a real time kernel before it would be suitable to use with EMC2. I have not looked at what RPi peripherals these existing ports support. Let's assume that some additional simple drivers might be needed too.

Still, it doesn't seem like a huge amount of work.

[ad_bfl]

I assume you're aware that there are (off the top of my head) three Linux distros already ported to the RPi, and available as sdcard image downloads from the RPi website.

However, I believe one of these would have to be adapted to use a real time kernel before it would be suitable to use with EMC2. I have not looked at what RPi peripherals these existing ports support. Let's assume that some additional simple drivers might be needed too.

Still, it doesn't seem like a huge amount of work.

LinuxCNC/EMC requires a parallel port, PCI or ISA bus for interfacing to the physical world, so that would need to be worked out.

Porting a real time kernel and device drivers to work with the RPi may be pretty significant, never looked deep enough into the code to have a estimate, but it could be a lot of work.

Post the question to the LInxCNC forum and see what responses you get back, Those folks could bring some solid comments to this thread.

Question, you referenced the reprap/maker/High school projects as one driver for this project, why do you think those existing solutions are inadequate?

[mpack]

LinuxCNC/EMC requires a parallel port, PCI or ISA bus for interfacing to the physical world, so that would need to be worked out.

No, it just requires PIOs, which it accesses via a HAL. It so happens that the PC HAL uses the PC parallel port - obviously because the PC doesn't have other PIO options. An RPi version would use a different HAL.

Porting a real time kernel and device drivers to work with the RPi may be pretty significant, never looked deep enough into the code to have a estimate, but it could be a lot of work.

Yes, if no ARM RTK already exists, and if we decide we really do need an OS kernel, then implementing one could be quite a bit of work.

Question, you referenced the reprap/maker/High school projects as one driver for this project, why do you think those existing solutions are inadequate?

That wasn't me, that was Crane550.

[mpack]

@zool. You write as if I've been trying to persuade you to abandon your beloved CNC gizmos - I have not. If you are happy with your existing setup then fine - that is absolutely no concern of mine!

My question (and I think the question behind this entire thread) was about whether the RPi would make a good CNC computer... and I think it's pretty clear that it could. It is equally true that it isn't a CNC computer right now - and won't be for a while (e.g. first step is for the RPi to become something other than vaporware). Ultimately however I believe that it provides more direct control over I/O and timing (as would be the case with any similar board of course), and it takes up much less space, so it has the potential to become a superior CNC machine. Which does not mean that I'm advocating that you give up solutions you are already happy with.

Cost is not the primary consideration for me, except insofar as it allows for a cheap experiment - and obviously a cheaper but superior final result would always be an attractive proposition.