Newbie questions about CNC workflow

[Lee Roberts]

Hi, no problem !

The drivers maybe inside the pc case but I dont think they will be part of the pc system its self, they probably fitted them in the case because they had room to do so and so on.

Drivers are usually independent of the host machine such that they "talk" to the host machine via the printer port or via usb. So what I'm really trying to say is, I doubt the pc has any special software drivers on it specifically for the motor drivers they use, such that without them the lathe cant be used. So this means anything past a physical connection to the pc via a port, can be considered irrelevant.

This then, should mean it dosnt matter what os or control software you use, however I've never worked with anything from sherline so I have no idea if they use any proprietary software, but my experience so far is suggesting they probably dont.

To be honest, if the system was setup and working when he got it then there really isn't any need to change to the os or control software, so all you really need to know at this point is how to generate gcode and then pass it to LinuxCNC/EMC and start the job, as gcode is universal in that sense.

.Me