Hello all - from the west on the other side of the pond

[Fred101]

I'm in the San Diego area of Southern Calif.

I program CNC machines for GKN (you might recognize GKN) aerospace here in El Cajon.

I make stuff from wood and metal "bits" ().

Decided to make myself a horizontal mounted CNC router to make dovetail corners, mortise-tenon joints and a little general routing.

I bought stepper motors/drives/power supply as a kit from Ebay, need to source a breakout board, ways and lead screws still. Will use Mach3 maybe 4 to control it. (Must be USB, parallel ports have gone the way of the Dodo). Oh, and the frame will be 1.25 11ga sq tube (roughly 32mm 3mm wall for the metrically inclined)

Just completed a 2 axis plasma table I bought online from Langmuir Systems. Had some issues with the lead screws but I think that has been resolved. It was a good starter for my CNC router project.

Glad I found the group.

Fred

[Kitwn]

Welcome to the forum Fred. Sounds like you have some useful experience to offer.

Kit

[BeagleBrainz]

Nah Parallel Ports are still are viable option for Linuxcnc. All you have to do is have a look on the Linuxcnc forum for recommended PCIe cards. Tho the Mesa FPGA cards are a far better alternative. Linuxcnc still will do the trajectory planning and the FPGA cards handles the step & direction timing, I|O and encoders.

[Clive S]

Nah Parallel Ports are still are viable option for Linuxcnc. All you have to do is have a look on the Linuxcnc forum for recommended PCIe cards. Tho the Mesa FPGA cards are a far better alternative. Linuxcnc still will do the trajectory planning and the FPGA cards handles the step & direction timing, I|O and encoders.

These work fine https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/254930870...5fa1b1072eb21c

[John11668]

These work fine https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/254930870...5fa1b1072eb21c

I used that one . I think I have a spare too

[Clive S]

I used that one . I think I have a spare too

I actually bought 5 in a batch for £25 all used but all worked fine

[dazp1976]

Must be USB

No, why?.

USB can be problematic from the emi noise given off by vfd drives if you use one.
You waant an Ethernet controller like a Smoothstepper or UC400eth.