Running BobCad/Cam and Mach 3 on the same machine?

[Corvus corax]

Well, I finally took the plunge and bought BCC V21. I now have to decide what to do about my host computer. I do not currently own a Windows machine, I have always used Mac. My question is, would it be better to use my big Powermac G5 dual core graphics workstation with an emulator program like Vitual PC for the Bobcad/cam, and buy a PC for the mach 3, or should I run both of them on the same machine?

And if I do decide to run a single machine for both pieces of software, would it be possible to run them both on a laptop that I could simply "dpck" at the CNC machine when its being run, or would I be better off just putting a junker Mach 3 PC out in the shop (non climate controlled garage in Florida)?

Ideally, I would like to run BCC on my Mac, and just spend a couple hundred on a "hardened" machine for the CNC controller, but I have no idea what to expect from BCC as far as stability. I also have no idea how to move the files to the controller from the main machine if I do that...

[ger21]

I'd spend $200-$300 on a "Mach3 only" machine. Plenty of 2Ghz machines on Ebay in that price range. As for transferring files, either a wireless network, or USB memory stick.

[Corvus corax]

Do you think I'd be able to run the BCC on my Mac then? The salesman at Bobcad said he had seen clients doing that, but beyond that, he had nothing else to offer. I'd much rather have the design software on my main computer.

[ger21]

I thought you had one of those new macs that could run windows. Can't answer that for you.

[Corvus corax]

It looks as if I'm going to be running My BCC on my big Power Macintosh workstation, and picking up a new(ish) Dell to run out in the garage on Mach 3. That, or build something with a cheap motherboard and a rack mount box that I can just slam into the machine cabinet. I'll post a full report on how well BCC runs on my G5, as it seems noone else seems to know how its going to work out. I'm pretty sure the machine will keep up without any problems, Plenty of RAM (16GB), and plenty of processor (2.3 Ghz dual core). Gotta love the dual screen setup when your running two OS at once, too.

[bill south]

Hey Corvus;
Be careful when selecting the Mach control compter. It should have a parallel printer port and most of the new machines do not have one!!! Just a thought.
Have a good day and good luck.
Bill from Spartanburg

[Corvus corax]

I was almost thinking about trying out that new USB based controller from Gecko, but I have ZERO programming experience. I'll probably grab an older machine from one of my freinds to run Mach, at least for the first go around. Now, all I have to do is decide servo or stepper. Given the size of my machine, and the speeds I want to run, I'd say servo is going to be the way I go.

[tjones]

The biggest probelm with the mac emulators is the solids rendering. Some seem to have trouble with that. However Bobcad should work good.

[Corvus corax]

I'm hoping my machine doesn't cause any problems… I've some rather "exotic" hardware on board. My machine is set up to run Maya, and the nVidia 7800 GTX video card has 512MB of VRAM alone. But, its a pretty common setup for Maya users, and every 3D app I've tried so far has worked pretty well. As long as I don't have to deal with some crappy emulated display card, I should be fine. I just wish I didn't have to buy the emulator to find out…

[tjones]

I still have an old orange-micro card from the years of doing autocad on my mac.

I am glad I am using Alibre now for designs. Still pull out AC though when doing simple 2d figures...but it is such a dumb cad system when there is no parametric ability.