So, new to CNC, pretty good with computers (Application Admin by day). I just want to be sure I understand the software components and layout for the Maslow, and any gotcha’s on specs. My apologies if these question are too basic, or if they were previously stated and I missed them somewhere. My understanding of the layout is, the Ardunio board talks to the motors to drive the movement of the cutting head, and the separate GC machine acts as an interface and sends the g-code to the Ardunio to be translated into that movement. If that’s correct, are there any critical specs for the GC machine (RAM/CPU/network/port speeds)?
I’m planning to use a 1GB Pine A64 SBC (http://wiki.pine64.org/index.php/PINE_A64_Main_Page#SoC_and_Memory_Specification) running a (TBD) lightweight Linux distro as the GC machine, do any design work on my desktop, and get any files on/off that machine via the network (assuming GC can access network shares). The Pine is roughly equivalent to a RP, so I’m guessing it’s fine, I just want to make sure that’s a viable plan, and I understand all the moving parts.
That sounds like you’ve got everything right to me. I don’t have a huge amount of experience with linux and I haven’t used a Pine laptop in particular so I’ll let others jump in on the details there, but you have the ecosystem right. The requirements to run GC are relatively low, I highly recommend the idea of designing on one computer and using a network share to transfer files to an interface computer with lower system requirements.
The pine should do fine, there are several disto options there. I’ve tested some of it on the pine 64. I stopped working with my PINE64 because the hardware wasn’t fully implemented, mainly the 4K features were not available on the desktop but video playback only.
The Udoo x86 is pretty much plug and play. I am going to test the Udoo Quad as it has an Arduino Mega type ( I believe it is a DUE compatible ) built in. I believe this will offer a unique 1 stop Workstation solution.
Let me know if there are any questions I can answer.
Nothing is to basic, and you may just know a lot more of certain things then us and discover that we are the ones asking the questions that are too basic.
Enjoy your front seat at your window when looking in this part of cyberspace…
Pine64 looks like a powerful little board, i think it has more power then a Pi.