well here we go. i gave up on Chilipepper and UGS just not as robust as i’d like them to be. Chili pepper didnt seem to like the files i was sending it and UGS decided to quit working on me today so ive decided on a more robust solution. the journey begins. any help/advice would be great. if i figure anything out i’ll try and post a how to.
Andrew, could you help all of us perhaps understand what didn’t work about your files and ChiliPeppr? Was it the size of your files, i.e. like 10MB files or something? What browser were you using, Chrome/Firefox? What were you using to generate them? What OS were you on?
ChiliPeppr has over 4,000 active monthly users all milling successfully, so if anyone is running into problems I think it’s important to try to stamp them out.
Thanks,
John
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Hi Andrew,
I have a Shapeoko-2 (X-carve upgrade ordered) using LinuxCNC and love it. I’m no expert at it but let me know what you need help with… It has a lot more to offer than Chilpepper/UGS but that comes with a price… it can be complex to get it running correctly and tuned well. I recently picked up an elo touch screen monitor and am using that with linuxCNC and the gmoccapy frontend. Its really wonderful.
@JohnLauer Chilipepper didnt seem to like the grbl files i was sending it for some reason. and sadly i dont really have time to troubleshoot and my system can often times run offline so having a control computer that has the ability to run with out an internet connection is important.
@JohnScherer LinuxCNC requires the parallel port connection so more tinkering and correctly wiring things. again im really in a crunch to get some parts off the line so sadly i’m going to go with another option (UGS and Gcodetransporter) untill which time i can devote to tinkering with LCNC. i think long term i would like it better but with my lack of time and dedicated walk through i just need to be up and running now. hence why i have decided to just throw windows (shivers) back onto the system and get back running quickly. downtime is killing me.
i work a full time job so i dont have alot of time to go out and tinker i may have afew hours each day or less to work with the machine. so when i’m down for a day or two its a big deal for me.
thank you both for your responses. and JohnScherer if you have some suggestions or would be willing to give me some education on LCNC i would love to hear it!
Ok @AndrewBishop… Maybe what I should do is write up an installation document on LinuxCNC, with specifics to Shapeoko/X-Carve. Over the next few days I’ll do some writing and see what I can produce.
@Zach_Kaplan, It would be really cool if Inventables could sell a complete turn-key Machinekit system based on the BeagleBone Black. One would need a Beagle Bone Black, a breakout board cape, three stepper drivers (something like these would be fine). The current power supplies you sell would work and the customer could provide there own monitor/keyboard/mouse. Its a very powerful system as the BeagleBone Black has it’s own coprocessor that deals with all the step/direction signal generation.
-John
that would be absolutely brilliant. do it with pictures… i love pictures 
and yes ive heard lots of great things about linux cnc and its abilities. i’d love to take better advantage of them such as the probe features among others. for now i’m going to devise a probe zeroing tool (low tech) for my own stuff. probably a super thin sheet of Aluminum or something and an LED. just something to let me know when i touch the surface of the part or get crazy close. i need more precision in my life!
John - is there anyway to use LinuxCNC with USB (keeping all of the normal x-carve electronics)?
nope, no way.