[daniellyall]

thank you ray, Kstrauss

[Methylethylketo]

Physical access to the machine 9 times in 10 will allow you to grant yourself root access. You could probably recover the root password from the baked in presets in the live-DVD it installs from if they didn't secure the credentials used in the install script.

I think the big thing to take away from this regarding PP is that if you decide to dig into it and fiddle with things, you're 110% on your own if you end up bricking it, crashing the machine, or doing other stupid things to your shiny new toy. That said, if it's anything like regular linuxcnc, all the regular tuning options are present, you just have to figure out where they go and how to work them. And teach yourself linux, and learn what chmod does, and learn to code in python instead of visualbasic, and all sorts of exciting things! And when you **** up, bad BAD things happen! Hope the E-Stop works!

I plan on tearing it open and seeing how hard it'll be to repurpose the ATC code to work with a 15 or 20 tool ATC, or some other cool stuff that you couldn't really do until the full enclosures were available.

[treyjugson]

That being said, I tend to be in agreement with the general view of treating the controller like an appliance and not mess with it if you don't have to. I have two computer monitors mounted to the wall next to my Tormach, and an extra computer to drive the spare monitor to do all the extra stuff I might need, keeping the controller as a stand-alone unit with no extra software on it.

I think this is along the lines of what many should start thinking. Tormach is moving up to a real mill controller with PP. People need to change from their hobby mentality. You wouldn't go out to the shop and fire up your big vmc to play solitaire or update your facebook page on it, it's job is to run the machine. Makes perfect sense that they are blocking people from having access to certain things that are not necessary for running the mill. Do all your CAD/CAM and all the other stuff on your windows pc, the mill controller only needs the g-code. Don't see why the concern about adding hard drives, surely the one included is big enough to hold many many g-code programs and if you don't have access to linux itself there's no need for room for more apps. Kudos Tormach, this is looking more and more professional each webinar.

[daniellyall]

if you don't know Linux never change a thing unless you know what your are doing same goes for any dedicated machine controller god when I try running linuxCNC new version I will set up and that's all

[CNC-Dude]

I think the big thing to take away from this regarding PP is that if you decide to dig into it and fiddle with things, you're 110% on your own if you end up bricking it, crashing the machine, or doing other stupid things to your shiny new toy.

But that's the beauty of trying to do this in your own computer! For some of us, a computer is $50.00. It is not the latest model in the planet, but it is way faster than this needs to be, specially when the really intricate stuff is happening in the MESANET card. Hence, we pay ~$100 (or whatever it is) for the card, download the Open Source code from its repository, play with it all we want, and even if we BRICK IT, how much have we lost? Well, I imagine whatever the MESANET card costs, although I think it is close to impossible to brick it. I have been trying to brick hardware with SW for the past 20 years and have failed miserably! I have been able to burn FETs, though... But they are always replaceable.

I also agree with the statement that we would be 110% on our own, but that is also part of the premise. In fact, I think if there is enough people doing this, then there is a community of individuals we can go to and fix problems. There would be no need to bug Tormach with questions.

[CadRhino]

So I have not been following the thread but my question is Tor-mach now going to change their name to Torpath or Torpilot?

[samco]

you are assuming the mach stands for mach3 and not machine...

So I have not been following the thread but my question is Tor-mach now going to change their name to Torpath or Torpilot?

[Hirudin]

I bet it was a joke.

[kstrauss]

Don't see why the concern about adding hard drives, surely the one included is big enough to hold many many g-code programs and if you don't have access to linux itself there's no need for room for more apps.

I want to exchange (not add) a hard drive to enable me to revert to Mach3 if there is a bug that prevents completing a job.

[CadRhino]

I bet it was a joke.

Yes, I guess o have to start using smiley faces again to make up for my dry sense of humor

[rowbare]

I want to exchange (not add) a hard drive to enable me to revert to Mach3 if there is a bug that prevents completing a job.

You don't need to go as far as physically exchanging the hard drive. As someone mentioned earlier, you can set up a dual boot on a single drive. If you want to go with two drives, you can install both of them and set whichever one you want as the boot drive in BIOS. Once that is done, insert the Install disk and it will install to that drive.

When you want to switch, shut down, switch the cable to the parallel port or the Mesa card as appropriate. When you boot up, go into the BIOS and select the desired boot drive and continue.

bob

[compunerdy]

Unless I missed something this is still a standard computer so the worst case is you have to reinstall using the CD. Not sure why you would think you can "brick" it unless that term is being used loosely.

[SomeWhatLost]

A SSD looks like another disk drive to the system and can be used as such. However, you will not necessarily get the best performance nor lifetime if you don't do some special configuration.

that is not really accurate as such... or at least applicable...
Performance? for a controller? not needed...
lifetime effects are over blown by the Internets...

A SSD will "wear out" if used to constantly write so you don't want a swap file on it.

so will a standard HDD...
the NAND flash used in a standard MLC SSD generally has a rated life time of >10000 writes, SLC NAND is >100000 writes
and that is assuming you write to the same cell over and over again...
most NAND controllers have what is known as Wear Leveling built in, the odds of you being able to write to the same exact cell over and over are very slim... regardless of what the OS thinks it is doing...

Performance is best if the the file system blocks start on boundaries that correspond to how the chips in the SSD are organized. There are special considerations regarding how space from deleted files is reused.

this isn't a gaming machine, we don't need every last ounce of performance out of it

I'm definitely not a Linux expert but... There's lots of material online but one of the first sites that Google finds is https://sites.google.com/site/easylinuxtipsproject/ssd Also, see Ubuntu Doesn?t TRIM SSDs By Default: Why Not and How To Enable It Yourself for info on trim. I have no idea if these links give good information or not but it sounds reasonable!

TRIM is nice... not needed in our application, but nice...
Many years ago, for reasons I am still not clear on, I decide I absolutely needed a MAME Cabinet ( ie old standup Arcade game setup Defender/asteroids/etc)... I threw together a bunch of old PC bits to create it, used an OMG $$$$ 8Gb SSD (well it was OMG $$$$ back then...) that I had laying around for the OS (win XP, no TRIM support)...

unfortunately after building the cabinet, I realized there was no actual room in the house for it anywhere... so it sits out on the back patio mostly unprotected from the elements in Chicago type weather (-20ish to +110ish)

still works perfectly fine to this day... well, I don't know if it is working fine right this minute as it is ungodly cold out... but I bet it will fire right up in the spring...

anyway, I think you may be over thinking what is needed for an SSD...
sure, some things are nice to do...
but really needed?

[kstrauss]

You don't need to go as far as physically exchanging the hard drive. As someone mentioned earlier, you can set up a dual boot on a single drive. If you want to go with two drives, you can install both of them and set whichever one you want as the boot drive in BIOS. Once that is done, insert the Install disk and it will install to that drive.

When you want to switch, shut down, switch the cable to the parallel port or the Mesa card as appropriate. When you boot up, go into the BIOS and select the desired boot drive and continue.

bob

Unless I'm missing something you have to partition the drive to dual boot so that requires a reinstall of the current XP/Mach3 and then install Linux. I'd prefer to not do *anything* to my current, working perfectly, Mach3 installation until I'm comfortable that PP runs all of my jobs.

I haven't had the Tormach computer apart recently but I don't believe that there are two drive bays to allow the installation of an additional drive. A 1TB disk arrived in the morning deliveries. My plan is when my PP DVD arrives I'll remove the current drive, install the Mesa card, install and partition the new drive, install Mach3 from the restore disk in one partition and PP in the other.

[kstrauss]

Unless I missed something this is still a standard computer so the worst case is you have to reinstall using the CD. Not sure why you would think you can "brick" it unless that term is being used loosely.

Right. My only concern would be a failed firmware update to the Mesa card.

[kstrauss]

anyway, I think you may be over thinking what is needed for an SSD...
sure, some things are nice to do...
but really needed?

You're probably right. On the other hand Tormach says that SSD isn't supported and I'd like to minimize any red herrings in a support situation. Besides, a SSD is about $40 more expensive that an old fashioned hard disk. As you mentioned this isn't a gaming machine so outstanding performance isn't required.

[SomeWhatLost]

true...
hard to beat a HDD when it comes to value...

[PCW_MESA]

Right. My only concern would be a failed firmware update to the Mesa card.

Its rather difficult to "brick" a 5i25 since normal problems like a interrupted firmware update (power fail etc)
will result in either no sync word or a bad configuration CRC. Either of these conditions will cause the fallback
configuration to be loaded.
The fallback configuration will not run the mill but will allow re-flashing the user firmware.

The 6I25 has the same fallback feature but in addition can be boostrapped from a blank flash chip
all from the PCIE (host) side.

[Methylethylketo]

I also agree with the statement that we would be 110% on our own, but that is also part of the premise. In fact, I think if there is enough people doing this, then there is a community of individuals we can go to and fix problems. There would be no need to bug Tormach with questions.

It was mostly "if you root your install and chown -R the /etc/ folder because some idiot on the internet said to, don't whine at us when your machine magically stops doing anything". I'm looking forward to doing a bunch of tests on the machine controller, like seeing exactly how heavily you need to load the real time kernel before the step motion pulses stop working right. With an o-scope and some patience, we can see how much is too much.

Unless I missed something this is still a standard computer so the worst case is you have to reinstall using the CD. Not sure why you would think you can "brick" it unless that term is being used loosely.

To the average user, anything that manages to stop the auto-launched UI from working would constitute bricking it. You can recover from it trivially with the restore DVD, but most people wouldn't be able to navigate a machine with gnome disabled or adjust things via SSH. An actual true 'this is now a fancy paperweight' bricking would be really impressive to pull off, I can't think if a way to accomplish it off hand.

[Philbobb]

Unless I'm missing something you have to partition the drive to dual boot so that requires a reinstall of the current XP/Mach3 and then install Linux. I'd prefer to not do *anything* to my current, working perfectly, Mach3 installation until I'm comfortable that PP runs all of my jobs.

You can shrink the XP partition using disk management, then create a new partition in the now available space using the Linux install disc, all without harming the current XP install. However that is a normal Linux dual boot setup, whether or not the PP install disc will support that is another question. A good idea to have a back up hard drive with a a known good install of XP/Mach. Clonezilla, a free Linux based disc imaging software works great for cloning discs.