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Weiss VM32 CNC Conversion

I've been going around and around (and around) about swapping out the Masso controller on my mill for something else. The Masso controller is alright, but it has some odd quirks.
Looked at LinuxCNC on a Raspberry Pi but I don't want to try and climb that hill again. Looked hard at Mach 4 but the hardware is pretty crazy expensive; ~$606USD inc. software licence.
Pathpilot is high on my list due to its clean and intuitive screen setups.
So I might pick up this Lenovo for $60 and order a Mesa card. I believe an 7i92 is what's recommended. @gerritv Does this look reasonable for a PC?
1747709114392.png


Or is this a better bet?
1747709310703.png
 
David said:
I've been going around and around (and around) about swapping out the Masso controller on my mill for something else. The Masso controller is alright, but it has some odd quirks.
Looked at LinuxCNC on a Raspberry Pi but I don't want to try and climb that hill again. Looked hard at Mach 4 but the hardware is pretty crazy expensive; ~$606USD inc. software licence.
Pathpilot is high on my list due to its clean and intuitive screen setups.
So I might pick up this Lenovo for $60 and order a Mesa card. I believe an 7i92 is what's recommended. @gerritv Does this look reasonable for a PC?View attachment 64768

Or is this a better bet?
View attachment 64769
Click to expand...
Where do you see the small ThinkCentre Business Desktop for $109? Given that a Pi5 from PiShop.ca is more and w/o power supply or box that's one heck of a deal.
www.pishop.ca

Raspberry Pi 5/8GB

Canadian source for Raspberry Pi, Arduino, Micro:bit, DIY electronics, robotics, and educational products. Raspberry Pi approved distributor for schools, commercial and personal projects. Microbit accessories and educational kits. Huge collection of Adafruit and SparkFun products in stock.
www.pishop.ca www.pishop.ca
 
jcdammeyer said:
Where do you see the small ThinkCentre Business Desktop for $109? Given that a Pi5 from PiShop.ca is more and w/o power supply or box that's one heck of a deal.
www.pishop.ca

Raspberry Pi 5/8GB

Canadian source for Raspberry Pi, Arduino, Micro:bit, DIY electronics, robotics, and educational products. Raspberry Pi approved distributor for schools, commercial and personal projects. Microbit accessories and educational kits. Huge collection of Adafruit and SparkFun products in stock.
www.pishop.ca www.pishop.ca
Click to expand...
It's on Marketplace.
I'm tempted to grab one.
 
I have two Linuxcnc based systems with Mesa cards.

I have found the LinuxCnc forum very helpful, and they have answered most of my questions quickly. I find it helps to google first and then ask direct questions.

For PCs I'm using a $50 kijij HP 8300? that looks similar to that Lenovo for one and a $100 eBay Lenovo Yoga for the other. Really like the Yoga for the excellent touchscreen. There is a document somewhere on the Linuxcnc forum that gives tips on bios settings to optimize real time response.

I'm using IIRC a 7i95t for the mill and a 7i96s for the lathe.

I have lots of unused I/O on the 7i95t

I'm using almost all of the I/O on the 7i96s (except only 2 of the 5 step and direction ports) I'm also using most of the the pins on the expansion port that are not isolated. I made a little daughter board to provide isolation for the expansion port pins. You're welcome to a bare board for free if you go that route.

For the 7i96s lathe I have a lot of encoders:
1 for the spindle
2 for DRO
2 for MPG
1 for a feed speed pot
1 for a jog speed pot

I'm not sure how Linxcnc compares to your Masso board? You can download LinuxCNC for free and then try the various GUIs to see if one appeals to you.
 
slow-poke said:
I have two Linuxcnc based systems with Mesa cards.

I have found the LinuxCnc forum very helpful, and they have answered most of my questions quickly. I find it helps to google first and then ask direct questions.

For PCs I'm using a $50 kijij HP 8300? that looks similar to that Lenovo for one and a $100 eBay Lenovo Yoga for the other. Really like the Yoga for the excellent touchscreen. There is a document somewhere on the Linuxcnc forum that gives tips on bios settings to optimize real time response.

I'm using IIRC a 7i95t for the mill and a 7i96s for the lathe.

I have lots of unused I/O on the 7i95t

I'm using almost all of the I/O on the 7i96s (except only 2 of the 5 step and direction ports) I'm also using most of the the pins on the expansion port that are not isolated. I made a little daughter board to provide isolation for the expansion port pins. You're welcome to a bare board for free if you go that route.

For the 7i96s lathe I have a lot of encoders:
1 for the spindle
2 for DRO
2 for MPG
1 for a feed speed pot
1 for a jog speed pot

I'm not sure how Linxcnc compares to your Masso board? You can download LinuxCNC for free and then try the various GUIs to see if one appeals to you.
Click to expand...
I'm using the 7i95H to two separate BoBs. One is the PMDX-126 which uses a charge pump signal from the MESA board to keep it active. If the charge pump vanishes because the PC hangs or is reset the enable out to the Servo Power is disabled and everything stops... now...

The second parallel port clone from the 7i95H goes to the cheap far east BoB and the inputs get the spindle input from the encoder.

So I have step/dir for 4 axis (X,Y,Z,A) and the spindle. Inputs for probe+toolsensor and a few other outputs. MPG is USB based.

I'm still using AXIS for the user interface. I think I'd have to invest in a large touch screen for any of the others but the Tormach one does interest me.
 
David said:
I've been going around and around (and around) about swapping out the Masso controller on my mill for something else. The Masso controller is alright, but it has some odd quirks.
Looked at LinuxCNC on a Raspberry Pi but I don't want to try and climb that hill again. Looked hard at Mach 4 but the hardware is pretty crazy expensive; ~$606USD inc. software licence.
Pathpilot is high on my list due to its clean and intuitive screen setups.
So I might pick up this Lenovo for $60 and order a Mesa card. I believe an 7i92 is what's recommended. @gerritv Does this look reasonable for a PC?View attachment 64768

Or is this a better bet?
View attachment 64769
Click to expand...

I switched from Mach 3 to a centroid acorn. I'm 100% happy with the change.
 
I just got up, sorry for the delay.
Tormach uses 7i92T for some machines. Depending on your BOB you may or may not need to make a transistion cable. Spindle speed is by PWM. There will be extra pins available on the 7i92T for tinkering, the configuration assumes you were/are using a DB25 interface.
Note that some Tormach mill uses their ECM board, so don't expect to configure yours to that. I use 1100-3 for my config with a few edits for bed size and Z travel as well as leadscrew pitch.

Whatever PC you use, preferably only 1 hw ethernet and then WiFi for internet access. The issue is that Linux seems incapable of assigning eth0 to a specific board and sticking with it.
 

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David said:
No worries @gerritv.
I appreciate your guidance!

@slow-poke thanks for the board types you use. Mesa make so many that it's utterly confusing for the uneducated!
@Upnorth Centroid was another I considered but it seems they kind of nickle and dime you with the add-on's etc.
Click to expand...
If you decide to give LinuxCNC another go, I can try and help. Mesa connections are pretty straightforward but again will help if needed.
 
slow-poke said:
If you decide to give LinuxCNC another go, I can try and help. Mesa connections are pretty straightforward but again will help if needed.
Click to expand...
I took one of the extra BC Gov. Surplus machines and installed LinuxCNC 2.9.4 on it but ran into problems with the probe screen software and some of the Python stuff. Is the Tormach still running 2.8.x or even older 2.7.x?

There were also problems installing 2.9.4 on the Pi4. Had to install 2.9.1 and then go through a bit of a process to bring it up to 2.9.4. That was back on January 24th so I don't know if that's been fixed.

On the PC I had to install 2.9.3 and apt upgrade to 2.9.4 to get it to work. The Probe Screen stuff was the real issue. Here's part of a posting from February 27th.
That got past the missing pango error but then it gets more complicated.

"module 'python' skipped - import error: No module named 'ConfigParser'"

There is a configparser.py and configparser.pyc in the psng/python folder. Renaming "configparser.py" to be "ConfigParser.py" removes the error but creates new ones likely because the compiled version .pyc is still lowercase.
Click to expand...

A lot of the Python stuff under Linux is beyond my skill set at the moment and since my mill works just fine with 2.8.x I have no reason to update until I have ball screws etc. All that is a much higher priority. So I left it for now.
 
^^^ that kind of stuff is what makes me leery of LCNC. I am pretty capable but if it involves code or code-like sorting out I'll be lost in the woods for weeks without a clue.
 
David said:
^^^ that kind of stuff is what makes me leery of LCNC. I am pretty capable but if it involves code or code-like sorting out I'll be lost in the woods for weeks without a clue.
Click to expand...
rantmode := ON;

In many ways Linux has gone the route of Microsoft and Apple where new versions break old code and the people who wrote the old code have moved on.

An example of that is the Python language that figures so prominently in Linux. The change from Version 2.0 to 3.0 broke so many things.

The root issue with Unix/Linux of file names where humans see mouse.txt the same as Mouse.TXT but the system does not. Why? Because way back PDP-10 machines with 64K of memory required extra code to deal with making all file names and paths (and the C language compilers) character case ignorant so they forced the programmers to ensure they used proper case.

Along came micro-processors with the BASIC language on TRS-80s etc. FORTRAN on the big systems and finally PASCAL, ALGOL etc all not caring if a variable was lower case or upper case.

But Linux was the game changer and C became the language of choice even for Microsoft and Windows. Apples run a version of I think BDS Unix under the covers. So now we're forced to let a computer that has gigbytes of RAM and speed way beyond ever visualized still force humans to differentiate between Configparser.py and configparser.py

RantMode := Off;
 
I think the problem with Linux and Python etc is far worse. It stems from amateurs not giving any thought to regression or backward compatibility. Linux in particular is very sensitive to hardwired library versions and API's. Windows has a much more forgiving model with interfaces in dll's.
Regardless,one of the many advantages of PathPilot is that all this nonsense is sorted out for you. Install and run. Who cares what version of Linux or Python is underneath, it is a working system. (currently it runs on ancient Mint 17 btw)
 
Both my Linux installs just worked with no issues. All my questions were related to non mainstream customized interface type stuff for my control panels as well as queries like where do I find a particular setting that I want to tweak.

Understanding the role of the .ini and .hal files is really important and can appear cryptic and overwhelming at first, but it opens the door allowing you to customize a lot of things that you simply can't with other software. For me that's really important I want the ability to get in and tweak things when desired.

Regarding case sensitive if you simply remember that Linux is case sensitive and respect that you should be fine. IIRC same applies to net names in Altium, passwords etc. That being said it does open the door for confusion if you're unaware or forget.
 
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