Took another crack at trying to drill through holes with the mini CNC. Short story, still doesn't work but I figured out why the origin/home is so far away, at least when using KiCAD. Notes: https://gitlab.com/snippets/1661557 I would be nice to upgrade the CNC to use a Smoothie Board, doing away with the need to use Real-Time Linux, not sure if the owner would be keen, but at $45 I feel it would be a worthy investment.

So we'll still be stuck using an ancient version of Linux? Meaning no Camtronics or any relatively new CNC software?

On Tue, May 9, 2017 at 1:35 PM, Jake <jake(a)spaz.org> wrote: > i asked noisebridge if we can take the MaxNC and they seem to be OK with it, > i just need to go pick it up. > > https://noisebridge.net/wiki/MaxNCMill > > it works the same way as the cheap shitty MyDIYCNC that we have now, except > that this is a Real Machine and much more accurate. As for untethering it > from the shitty old desktop, i have a mini computer with a parallel port > that can be attached to the back of the CNC, and then it can be used from > one's laptop via ssh with x-forwarding, or one can plug in a monitor and > keyboard, or use x11vnc or whatever > > but a smoothie board would be inappropriate since the MaxNC has its own > motor driver electronics, and only needs to be sent TTL signals (from a > parallel port or whatever) to step along in whatever direction. > > if you wanted to convert the MaxNC to something simpler, a regular arduino > with a g-code interpreter and a DB25M plug would work just fine to step it > around. > > -jake > > > On Tue, 9 May 2017, Morgan Allen wrote: > >> Took another crack at trying to drill through holes with the mini CNC. >> Short story, still doesn't work but I figured out why the origin/home is so >> far away, at least when using KiCAD. >> >> Notes: https://gitlab.com/snippets/1661557 >> >> I would be nice to upgrade the CNC to use a Smoothie Board, doing away with >> the need to use Real-Time Linux, not sure if the owner would be keen, but >> at $45 I feel it would be a worthy investment.