(feel free to skip down to QUESTIONS if you're busy/impatient!)
I've been lurking for about a month, wary of posting, as there are something like 132 forums in 15 sections, and I wanted to read as much as possible (here and via Google) before repeating questions asked a million times. Also, it took me a long time to even find the link for making a new post - "Forum Tools" indeed
This is one enormous site, and a bit hard for a n00b like me to navigate, but I'm glad it's here, because I'm going to need it.
I've been "inventing" things since I was a kid, always disappointed with hand tools, and budget bench equipment, and unable to get my hands on the big toys. I always wished specifically that someone would make a small, affordable mill for hobbyists like me, and then this year at the Maker Faire, I saw one (actually, it was at the Hobby Engineering booth, being operated by the owner/site manager), and fainted, and ran home to Google for a week straight without sleeping. Now my brain is melting from info overload - everything from woodworking to injection molding - making stuff rules, and the more I read up on, the more there is to read up on. If only I'd known years ago that I had all these options.
I settled on, and now have a Sherline 5400 with their stepper motors, including a 4th on their rotary table. I'm quite happy with it - it's what I need right now. I've been cranking out little tests for weeks, learning about centering and aligning things, and wigglers and handwheels, and making my quota of newbie mistakes, but my latest attempt to make a fairly involved jig for some toy pieces I want to make is the last straw. I'll finish it up, so I have at least *some* material for holding over future generations of slackers who don't know how easy they have it, but I want to get the CNC stuff up and running finally. Furthermore, reading up on the subject extensively now, I've lost faith in my limited electronics and programming background. I've made stepper motors do some fun things, and I've programmed PICS and BASIC Stamps, but I'm able to say finally that all I've done, or probably would do is chicken scratch to what's available. It's time to shell out some money, but to save at least some of my remaining funds, EMC seems a viable option. I'll be going with Ubuntu, and probably getting a new PC, and using my current, small, Shuttle SS51G PC (no parallel ports), should I go this route. Now for the questions, finally!
QUESTIONS:
1) Can EMC handle a serial input? I found one question on the site, but it descended into talk over some ancient computer port formats, and didn't seem to just say that EMC can do serial. If so, what's required?
2) If it can't do serial, has anyone managed a serial to parallel conversion? I would be hoping for something that went from the DB-25 parallel to the 9-pin RS232 connector made famous in part by PC COM ports, and 8-bit video game console controller ports. I bought one of these once, and it came in with a Centronix thing on the parallel end. I'd assume anything that went from parallel to a single serial line would involve a little breakout box with shift registers or somesuch. Honestly, I'm having a hard time even finding something like this - the RS232<->parallel stuff I've seen online has DB-25s on both ends, which is disheartening.
2) Is there anything nice and simple like Sherline's controller that *isn't* $600 dollars (and serial would be nice)?
This just doesn't look like the better part of a grand to me. I'm still considering it, as I have 4 Sherline motors, with their DIN connectors, and I know it would just work, but still...
3) Honest opinions about EMC? I'd LOVE to get any kind of pros/cons. I can't seem to stumble upon this hidden info online. What do you wish it had that some/all other CNC apps have? What's holding it back, or making it clunky? What can it do that's unique and special to it, if anything? Is there a lower limit to the PC specs? I feel like all the info is running me in big, time-sinking, infoless circles.
4) If I get the Sherline controller box, will other things be able to talk to it? If I give up on EMC, and go with something like DeskCNC, or this Bob I keep hearing about, do I need to Ebay the Sherline box?
That's a lot for now. I greatly appreciate any info on any of that, eventually becoming more knowledgeable, and then helping future n3wbs with their transition periods.