[peterde]

I'm a newb to cnczone, but I'm looking to buy a CNC router for my own shop. I'm not new to CNC's. I've been a toolmaker for 38 years. I've set up, programmed them, and run them for years. One thing I've come across in my research is that Windows has other things going on in the background that may interfere with CNC operation, which could possibly create problems.

My thought here is to take a clue from the hackers geeks and gamers, and strip windows down to a stable environment with nothing to do but run your CNC program. I found this link that I thought might be useful for members here.

Trim Down Windows to the Bare Essentials

I am looking for a CNC router that I can equip with a fourth axis later for my wood shop, although wood is not the only thing I may be machining. Considering the bewildering array of product and information available, I would be happy to get advice from people that HAVE and USE these machines. I'm looking for a small machine in the range of $5000 or so and 24"X48" or 48"48" as I have limited space in my shop. Currently I'm looking at the KL-6090 from Automation Technologies. or the Probotics Fireball Meteor.

The KL-6090 looks like a more substantial machine (more stable), but the Meteor comes as a plug and play machine and can be equipped with a proper spindle. The KL-6090 comes set to run on Mach 3, which I like the looks of better than EMC2, but I have to provide the computer and load the control software. The Meteor also has an open center under the cheater board, which means I can set work literally under the work surface to get more height if I need it, for example to set my fourth axis with its center level with the table height netting me a larger turning capacity.

Pictures and stats can be deceiving. There's no substitute for someone who's had their hands in the machines and has gotten a "feel" for them. Any thoughts on these machines would be appreciated, or maybe submit a thought I had not considered yet. (yes that might be possible)

http://www.automationtechnologiesinc...090-cnc-router

https://www.probotix.com/FireBall_Meteor_cnc_router/

[neilw20]

What can interfere?
Time
see the PDF for the insides, from the author of Mach3
The shortcomings of windows can be bypassed.

[peterde]

What happens when Windows decides to update in the middle of your program? Windows tries to "multitask" everything, and that could cause problems. Gamers sometimes strip windows down so it only has one thing to do, thereby gaining a performance boost. I don't know about you, but if I have a CNC program running, I want Windows to have only one thing to do --- run my program.

Anyway, I'm just trying to be helpful. If it helps --- great. If it doesn't --- oh well.

[neilw20]

Read Mach3Mysteries.pdf and see how it works. Refer to post #2 please.
The Mach3 realtime processing has a higher priority than windows.
Windows processing is slowed down.
This is obvious when running a program if the mouse is moved outside the Mach3 window.
The only interrupt that can impede Mach3 at machine level is DMA interrupts.
As long as Mach3 at windows level gets a look in 10 times per second all is well.
IDE drives doing their auto repair thing can be a problem. Use Sata or Scsi.
Laptops don't fare well because they keep changing the clock speed to save power.
You might want windows to be only doing YOUR thing, so read the link to 'time' and see what is really happening.

[ger21]

What happens when Windows decides to update in the middle of your program?

Your PC running your machine should have automatic updates turned off, and no antivirus or other software running in the background.

Gamers sometimes strip windows down so it only has one thing to do, thereby gaining a performance boost. I don't know about you, but if I have a CNC program running, I want Windows to have only one thing to do --- run my program.

Mach3's been around for nearly 10 years now, with 10's of thousands of users.
A clean Windows XP install works perfectly fine. There is an optimization guide for disabling things that can cause issues on certain PC's, but it's rarely necessary.

If you're really concerned about it, you can use an external hardware motion controller which takes all complex work away from Windows, and removes all the issues your concerned about. This is the direction that hobby CNC is headed, as Microsoft has made it impossible to use the parallel port for CNC with Windows 8 and 64 bit OS's.

[Wade]

Windows is perfect as a generator of point to point linear commands.

In a perfect world, windows would generate a X,Y,Z goto command, with a rate, and a 5 dollar microcontroller, would take that over and generator uninterrupted, perfect pulses. Arcs could be handled this way also, but would require a very well defined interface between the two.

I do some of this for a living. We don't use anything with windows or Linux to do anything critical. Everything is handed off to a microcontroller (which is the part I do). This way, every time microsoft puts out a patch, we don't have to rewrite something.

[mactec54]

Wade
Everything is handed off to a microcontroller

What you are saying is basically what the Smooth stepper & the U100 does & any other control that has it's own CPU, these are feed from the computer through USB, Ethernet Etc, & work very well, I have been running the U100 from a laptop windows7 64bit with no problems, I have the Smooth stepper also, but unless you need more I/0 & a higher performance the U100 does a great job

[Wade]

mactec54,

I assumed there were such controllers. It's the only logical way to real time control something, from a computer that's running a non-realtime operating system. Ethernet, WiFi, ZigBee, USB, are all non-predictable communications methods. You just need a way to buffer up commands, and let something take over, that's guaranteed real-time.

It should / could be really cheap.

[rowbare]

mactec,

what is the U100? I haven't heard of it before.

bob

[samco]

Linuxcnc is using a realtime patched os. So with mach - the printer port module is the only thing that is realtime because of how art wrote it. So any of the brains, macros, vb scrips or whatever that are initiated in mach are not realtime. They happen when the happen.

In linuxcnc - I know something is going to happen every ms or every 50us or whatever depending on what I am doing. The integrated Ladder software also runs every ms.

Also - with external motion devices that buffer there are other issues. Like feed hold, feed override and such. They have to be well thought out so they happen instantly and not delayed..

Plus you are limited to what features have been implemented in the external motion controller. With linuxcnc which has the realtime within the computer - all realtime features are available to all interface cards. Look at rigid tapping - that could be done with just the printer port with linuxcnc if you wanted to.

Just my opinion..
sam