Re: [Emc-users] EMC software directions.

[William S. <wsc...@nc...>]

Hi David,

I run EMC on a P200 (actually an overdriven P166 ) with steppermod, BDI 2.18
and have good performance from it. I use Gecko Servo drives with it and that
is probably the reason that it runs so well. The step and direction servo
drives don't require a smooth pulse train to run well and neither do the
pulse multipling stepper drives, as they generate their own pulsetrain.
Steppermod is reputed to have a ragged pulse output which can cause problems
on some stepper drives. Also a true analog servo system, or an offloaded
pulse generator such as Jon Elson's PPMC setup should work well on a slow
Pentium I would imagine.

Bill


----- Original Message -----
From: "Markwayne" <mar...@mi...>
To: <emc...@li...>
Sent: Tuesday, May 27, 2003 10:32 PM
Subject: Re: [Emc-users] EMC software directions.


> Well IMAOHO if you use steppermot with step/dir you can get away with a
> P1, freqmot forgetaboutit. With a "full load" linux with Xfree and KDE
> at least step up to the PII, Celeron, AMD K6-2,3 class, these are cheap,
> see Ebay. Smoothness will be your reward. You can use the old notebook
> as a Xterm if you want. And also the newer the notebook the more
> compliant the LPT port.
>
> Mark
>
> David A. Frantz wrote:
> > Hi Team;
> >
> > As I start to put more time into EMC I've come to realize that there are
> > two different realtime interfaces it is capable of using.    Is there a
> > long term strategey to use RTAI over RTLinux?    I realize that the are
> > some apparent limitations with RTAI at the moment, but is this what the
> > developers are targeting in the future?
> >
> > You see I took and downloaded both RTLinux and RTAI, so now it is a
> > question of which one should I go with.    I could just wait until the
> > latest version of BDI is out, which won't be long I hope.
> >
> > Also ( I know this is a loaded question) but what is the minimal PC
> > horse power required to run EMC?    Can I get away with a 166MHz laptop
> > or does the perfromance capability knock it out of running right of the
> > bat?    I do know that some laptops have non conforming printer ports,
> > is there a list somewhere that one can reference.     This may sound
> > cheap but if I can keep a laptop, that is otherwise functional, out of
> > the landfill I figure its worth a shot.
> >
> > Thanks
> > Dave
> >
> >
> >
> >