Originally Posted by gm3211  >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>snipped
As for USB to serial adapters, you may have reliability issues that we have seen in the field. I recommend you find a PC with a standard builtin serial port from the motherboard or get some PCI serial card. |
I'd almost have to say that that is an understatement. Many of the USB to RS232 adapters are very unreliable and should be avoided where failure may lead to hazards. I would imagine that some are better than others but could not tell you which is which. Besides I have a suspicion that MS may be as much of a problem here as the adapters.
This is not to say that real RS232 ports can't get screwed up but it is far less of a problem to the point of being almost nonexistent.
As far as the Shopbot goes I can't help much here. Never even seen one. Where abouts are you located? My suggestion would be to get the machine to run on either EMC or Mach and ignore any proprietary software. Not that Mach is open source, what I'm trying to say is to go with a software package that makes use of fairly generic G-Code. What is possible with the hardware you have is hard for me to even guess at the moment. At best you will have access to the software and documentation.
Thanks
Dave