Dustie is actually fine. But, I’ve got to the point where the growing issues with Dustie were just not getting better, and the machine was getting less and less usable for the average member. At this point:
- The computer has no network ability, meaning that all files must be transferred by sd card
- Mach3 is… deprecated, poorly documented, buggy, and overall a system which doesn’t actually work well, by design
- The motion control board has no free inputs, and indeed has so few inputs that it severely limits the possible capabilities of the cnc
- Overall, because of these limitations, it cannot grow without undocumented, painful, and likely (overly, for the function) expensive and proprietary solutions.
So, with this in mind, I’ve sourced an upgrade to the board, which in this case has implications upstream (OS and computer hardware) and downstream (I/O capacity, voltage availability, etc.). Better in literally every objective criteria: we’ll be able to use more sensing (squaring via homing each y axis separately), add a tool sensing touch plate and future thoughts of a rotary axis and other such fun stuff.
Lots of options seemed to fit the bill, but at the end of the day I came to two options which broke us free from the current limitations and provided room for future growth. Ultimately, one of those was the Masso G3 Screen, which would be all about uptime and essentially a closed appliance. However, the cost was really, really high and it retains a bit of the proprietary limitations of our current setup, so what I settled on is:
A Mesa 7i76EU card with a new Linux PC running LinuxCNC!
What this means is that in the next week, I will be spending a lot of time preparing for the arrival of the card installing the software and preparing a dust-proof case for the PC in the woodshop. Once it arrives, it will shift to a wiring task to get the existing hardware wired up to the control board in the existing control box. Hopefully it will be all up and running within 2 weeks. Essentially, this board functions in the same way as the existing one but has a whole slew of upgrades all around.
Once it’s in place, I will post a guide to using it, all of it will be documented both on the wiki and config files will be on VHS’s GitHub. So the ultimate outcome of this task will be a documented CNC (better than now!), open control hardware and software, and training will be provided for existing users to be able to use it straight away. I’ll continue to offer training for new users on the new system.
Help with this will be appreciated! Please reach out if you’re interested in taking on any part of this upgrade. Donations to assist in covering the cost are also appreciated, though not expected in any way. Total cost including shipping, but not including CBSA-related, is $420.
Hope this helps both the CNC and also provides a really cool benefit for the space as a whole.