[Cairns]

My experience was exactly the same as Gary's, even to the point of wiring a remote power switch. You don't need a beast, just a basic machine with a fresh install of XP and then go through the instructions in the Tormach manual. I've had no problems with Mach.

Originally Posted by justgary You can download the complete machine manual on the Tormach web site. The machine really only needs about 1 GHz or so, which means you can use a stripped junker computer. I grabbed one off of the junk pile at work and freshened its brain with a clean install of Winders XP. The plus side: 1) It was free. 2) I wound up removing all of the covers and plastic junk on the case to get the most air circulation and easy access to the guts, and I might not have done that to a new one. 3) With the front cover of the case off, I could rip the power switch and LED harness out and remote it to the arm, just under the monitor. No more crawling under the stand to turn on the computer. 4) With an older computer, I didn't have to investigate and learn the hard way about turning off hyperthreading in the CPU. 5) If it breaks, I'll go scrounge another one. Did I mention it was free? The minus side: 1) My free computer only has USB 1.1 instead of 2.0. The G-Code files are generally really small, so I don't care, but Bill (the guy inside of Winders) complains every time I plug in a thumb drive to transfer a file. A small price to pay. You can download the Mach3 test software, allowing you to see if a particular computer should work before you even hook it up to the mill. The manual mentions other issues with laptops, such as power monitoring, that can give you trouble. I personally think that some laptops would work, but you'll have to test them to be sure. It really isn't hard to configure a computer for use with Mach3. Just follow the directions in the manual and you should be fine. I'd be willing to bet that you could visit just about any business in your area and ask for an old 1 GHz computer. When you explain why you want it, they might just give you one. Heck, with Vista out now, they might give you a license for XP with it! It's worth a try. From the rest of the responses, it looks like everyone has done their own thing for their own reasons. The bottom line is that the computer is probably the least of the worries you'll have. Once you get it set up properly, it will run without issues until the hard drive crashes (which it will, eventually). You'll have far more problems with breaking tooling, or coolant drips, or in my case, rust. Regards, - Just Gary