Isel 4433 - Can I use Mach3 with it?

[Clive S]

What I mean by that is (from my understanding) LinuxCNC generates the pulses for the stepper driver itself, its built as a Real-Time OS specifically for that purpose. Windows is definitely not an RT OS, so to get a decent output people generally design machines for Mach3/Mach4 to have the signal generation off-loaded to a buffering FPGA of some kind. Sure, you can modify one setup to work with the other, but its not just a software change in most cases.

You are correct when using the parallel port Lcnc does the step gen in realtime but I think these days most Lcnc users use cards that have the FPGA on board to generate the pulses at up to 10Mg like a lot of motion controllers do.

I am in no way knocking Mach3 against Lcnc nor will I get into a debate about the two. (I actually use both) But would like to see more on this forum about Lcnc.

Linuxcnc is very easy to setup from an iso file to load the system (15 mins max) and then use the wizard (stepconf) to set a simple 3 axis machine up using the PP all free.