[samco]

Hi,
I ran LinuxCNC on an old laptop, and I used it to run my then mini-mill which was running Mach3 and two parallel port BoBs. NFS had declared that all development had ceased on Mach3
so I was looking at some alternatives. I tried LinuxCNC and was impressed.

What I did find with LinuxCNC that once you go past the basic features and need to code something a bit special...it got very much harder very quickly. I am a fair programmer normally, and if I had persevered
I think I would have gotten to grips with LinuxCNC, but it represented a hell of a learning curve.

I decided to try Mach4, initially with the legacy Mach4 parallel port, and found that while it was new and had a learning curve I got good results fairly easily. Then I got an Ethernet SmoothStepper, and Mach4
really came into its own. There was another fairly steep learning curve associated with Lua, the API and the structure of Mach4 for writing your own scripts, but distinctly less of a learning curve of LinuxCNC
for the same result. I stuck with Mach4. I've been using it for eight years and it does every thing and more than I need....and has become so familiar.

I am days away from finishing a trunnion fifth axis, I just picked up the last batch of laser cut steel this morning.

Mach4 runs five axis code no trouble but does not have kinematics to handle random work offset relative to the centre of rotation. There is at least one user whom has written his own kinematic module for Mach4,
and some time in the future I may have to consider that too. In the first instance I deliberately built my fifth axis such that I can touch off the the centre of rotation, and set my workpiece relative to that. It might be considered a limitation,
but for many years five axis machines were all like that, so I'll get familiar with that before making any rash decisions.

I have no reason to believe that NFS would deny me use of their source code (with appropriate Non Disclosure Agreement), but if not then I would reconsider the choice of LinuxCNC. It is open source and plenty of enthusiastic
users share code all the time. Still some months in the future yet.

Craig

Can you remember what you were wanting to accomplish in linuxcnc?

Yes.. Kins is one of linuxcnc's strong points - but certainly isn't for the faint of heart..