Quote Originally Posted by rnr107 View Post
I am trying to get away from Windows timing problems...

Both my milling machines run on USB. When I started writing the code to do it everything seemed straight forwards. I didn't find the big snag until I added a pause button. It's not too bad, you start with a bit of panic braking and after that you have all the time in the world to sort out how you are going to get back up to speed. If it takes a whole second to sort the mess out you would never notice because the machine is paused, but it ain't easy to make it bullet proof :naughty:

I have a basic system that works and it is totally convenient to take a Win 7 laptop to the machine, plug in a USB and start cuttting but I would never describe it as commercial. I don't know of any convenient standard protocol for sending the data and interrogating the mill. All the big machine makers have their own protocols and use Ethernet. Maybe we should start a MyCNC thread and hammer out a protocol that covers all the bases and define our own standard so anyone can make the harware. I am quite happy to offer mine as a start point, but I doubt many would agree with it or even join in