Does Mach 3 run ok on laptops?

[irving2008]

As a total beginner to mill cnc conversion I have been doing a lot of research and whilst looking at the Mach 3 web page, http://www.machsupport.com/

I was a bit surprised to read the following under the "Mach 3 minimum requirements" heading:

"Laptops are not supported because the power saving features of the chipsets disrupt the pulse stream"

I was hoping to use a laptop with mach 3, is this possible?

I'm also looking at the Vectric software packages http://www.vectric.com/ as I'm interested in engraving,sign writing and photo machining. Does anyone use them and can you tell me if they are any good?

Like many things, there's what works and there's whats supported....

Several people use Mach3 on a laptop, but it may take some experimentation to get it to work reliably, and reliability when chucking bits of machinery around is what counts...

[I need a dog]

Thanks for reply, i have just typed "mach 3 laptop" into google and the results confirm your reply. Pretty much hit and miss. Although i have just read that there is a possible solution to many troublesome laptops running mach 3 which involves "disabling the acpi driver".
Why can't everything in life be as simple as beans on toast.......

[Lee Roberts]

Why can't everything in life be as simple as beans on toast.......

Well you say that but i like to mix cheese in with my beans, then put them on toast. I should point out the toast is also covered in Clover "butter".

What about using a USB system on a laptop ?

[Tom]

Well you say that but...

I recon life CAN be as simple as beans on toast.

Unless your router will fold up into a laptop bag, a desktop makes more sense. Probably about 20% of the cost for the same performance (£50 will get you something that'll run EMC and Mach in its sleep). And you can expand IO with extra parallel ports.
But where to put a big bulky desktop box? Just put it ummm,,, under the massive router.... It definitely beats worrying about compatibility...

Just my 2p,
Or am I missing something?! :whistling:

[Smiler]

I recon life CAN be as simple as beans on toast.

Unless your router will fold up into a laptop bag, a desktop makes more sense. Probably about 20% of the cost for the same performance (£50 will get you something that'll run EMC and Mach in its sleep). And you can expand IO with extra parallel ports.
But where to put a big bulky desktop box? Just put it ummm,,, under the massive router.... It definitely beats worrying about compatibility...

Just my 2p,
Or am I missing something?! :whistling:

In my case it was that the Router would be living in a place that was not conducive to leaving a PC permanently with it i.e. cold, damp workshop by the sea. Now it's in a warm dry place and I blagged a 2.8Ghz SFF Dell pc to run it off. Add a touchscreen and you don't even need a keyboard or mouse.

My experience with a dell laptop was needing to turn off all powersaving features i.e. smartstep, USB powersaving and ACPI. I then had problems with the machine overheating so I needed a utility to turn on and keep on all the system fans at full power, then another utility to prevent windows from switching the CPU to low power mode. It worked wonderfully for a year but I could see a real standalone PC was what was needed.

My laptop is a Dell Latitude C640, 120 quid off eBlag.

Jeff.