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Gerald_D
Registered
Username: Gerald_d
Post Number: 1179
Registered: 11-2005
| | Posted on Wednesday, March 28, 2007 - 07:58 am: | 
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This thread sets out to develop a specification for the PC needed to drive a MechMate....
1. If you are using the MechMate for production to earn a living, get a dedicated PC that will be expected to do nothing more than to control the machine. This PC will only have the bare essentials to run Mach3 - all other applications need to be stripped out. You don't want a $1000 cutting job to be ruined because the PC decided to go and check for e-mails or decided to do an automatic virus scan. Start with the command format c: 
2. The operating system (OS) must be 32-bit Windows. That means either Windows 2000 or Windows XP. The 16-bit Windows (98 & ME) will not work.
3. The PC must have an old-fashioned "parallel" printer port. That is the wide connector with 25 little pins. This connector is being phased out in favour of the USB port, but Mach3 does not have a proven USB option yet (close, but not quite yet). Modern laptops don't have the 25 pin parallel connector. Some desktops don't have them either, but they can normally still be easily fitted to an "expansion slot".
4. What speed, processor, RAM, memory? Quite frankly, I don't know the definitive answer to this. My approach is to get an old office PC of about 2004 vintage with some form of Pentium in it. The Mach3 discussion forums would be the better place to get good specs on these things. (Apparently there is a manual which says the pentium speed must be above 1.0Ghz for Mach3. XP needs more RAM than Win2000)
Any more? |
Gerald_D
Registered
Username: Gerald_d
Post Number: 1180
Registered: 11-2005
| | Posted on Wednesday, March 28, 2007 - 08:04 am: |
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5. Don't use "wireless" keyboards, mice, ethernet, etc. Mike will tell us about this.
6. A floppy drive will not survive in the dusty atmosphere. The most reliable way of loading files to the PC is via a USB "thumb" or flash drive memory stick. |
Mike Richards
Registered
Username: Richards
Post Number: 90
Registered: 05-2006
| | Posted on Wednesday, March 28, 2007 - 03:00 pm: |
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Gerald has brought up a subject that is very dear to my heart - using wireless ethernet. As he said - DON'T - use wireless ethernet. A while back I added a 3hp Colombo spindle to my Shopbot and immediately started to have random crashes. The Shopbot would hesitate and sometimes move an axis a random amount of steps. That always ruined the part that I was cutting. I rewired the machine using the best grounding techniques that I knew. That didn't work. So I rigged up a Rube Goldberg contraption to keep power cables more than six inches away from signal cables. That didn't work. I added $750 worth of Load and Line reactors. That didn't work. I wrapped all signal lines through ferrite cores. That didn't work.
Finally, late one night, when I was ready to remove the spindle and revert back to a PC-7518 router, I noticed the computer screen randomly flashing a message. The wireless ethernet card was randomly connecting and disconnecting. Every time it disconnected, the computer had to turn its attention to the wireless connection. When it did that, the Shopbot glitched. I had completely forgotten that I had added a wireless card the same day that I had installed the spindle.
The solution was to remove the wireless card and to use a standard wired ethernet connection.
So, as Gerald pointed out - DON'T - use a wireless ethernet card. |
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.80. Computer Hardware & Software