PC vs. Laptop

[DAB_Design]

I finally got my mill, and am working on making the motor mounts. My wife doesn't work a 'set' schedule, so it's very slow going. An hour here, 2 hours there. Just about have my X axis mount done. And now I need to think what I'll be using to run it.

I'm using HobbyCNC driver board. I'm going to just start with the small stepper motors that I have already. I've had it hooked up to my home pc, and it seemed to work fine. But I don't want to use my main system to run it. So, I'm looking at a new system. I really really really want a laptop. I've came up with some pros and cons for each. Feel free to pick away at them. I DO NOT feel comfortable leaving any computer in my garage, as it's not exactly in the best of shape.

Laptop PROs:

Small form factor.
No monitor needed.
Very easy to unhook and move.
Battery powered for usage while not hooked to the machine. (browsing around the house and such)
Can be used for addition things.....movies while on trips. We make about a six hour one way trip 2 or 3 times a year.
Mobility for taking drawings/models to the customer.
Easily transfer of files (wireless network which I already have)from anywhere around the house.
You just look so damn cool with a laptop.

Laptop Cons:

More expensive than a PC.
If something fails, it costs more to replace.
Non-upgradable. But I don't see this as really being a problem.


PC Pros:
Cheaper.
Easily/cheaply upgradable.

PC Cons:
Large form factor.
Requires a monitor (additional cost)
Heavy and bulky for moving.
Would only serve the one purpose.
Floppies Floppies Floppies.
You just don't look so cool carrying a desktop as you do a laptop.


I'm sure there are more, but my mind is blank now.

I'm more than likely going with ebay. I'll have at least my modeling software installed, so I want something powerful enough to run it. 1Ghz with at least 256MB RAM. I'll be using Mach2 to run the machine. It's probably obvious that I'm a bit biased towards the laptop. Are there any hardware issues that would justify a PC over a laptop? I remember reading somewhere on this forum that the parrallel port on laptops is sometimes questionable. Is that so on newer laptops, or is that just an issue with older ones?

[Patrick2by4]

I have been using a laptop for years and I can honestly say that I love it. I can take care of things in places where normally it would be inconvenient to have a desktop or couldn't bring a desktop. But honestly, it comes down to your needs. The prices of laptops have dropped dramatically so that you may be able to have the best of both worlds, a desktop and a laptop. (my laptop cost me a little under $700 at BestBuy.com, on sale of course) But if I had to choose only one, it would have to be a desktop because of all the peripherals I need on my machine. As for the cool factor, after awhile, you don't think about it anymore.

One more thing, a wireless network is awesome. I have a 802.11g router and pc card. I can even watch movies over the network.

[metlmunchr]

I think there may be some issues about the voltage on the parallel ports on a lot of laptops.....3V as opposed to the common 5V signals maybe. I've had a laptop for a long time. The "cool factor" wears off real fast, particularly when you find yourself getting about half cross-eyed as you try cad work on a laptop monitor. It's my understanding that many of the new laptops don't even have a parallel port, as things move more and more to USB. Same with some new desktops, but the solution there costs less than 50 bucks, whereas its either expensive or non-existant on a laptop.

[High Seas]

Maybe you can get the COOLEST Look with a PDA thats loaded with the CAD software you'd need to transport. Then use a purpose built Desktop for the Machine Shop - use a good second hand monitor - 25 bucks at the goodwill etc. I'd make sure the Machine has some network capability and USB. You can use USB Data transfer Cards to move big files to the customers site and plugh into their machines...
For the Movies, maybe one of the cheapie DVD players for the car? Hey, Look at all the STUFF you can get! I LOVE Spending OTHER peoples money!
I'm using an old 500MgHz PIII in the shop and my wife has an ancient laptop we boyught second-hand - also a PIII but 333 MgHz - it does movis ok - but all the extra gear you gotta carry - external CD, extra large external HDD, and everything has a dongle-- Ugh!
BTW the laptop was low (3.3 Volt) on the parallel port and wouldn't do the MACH2 thing -
Cheers - Jim

[CNCPlastic]

Hmmm...the Firm where I work has 100,000+ laptops in use, I managed the IT support staff in 4 offices until I transfered to a new role last year so I'm very familiar with them.

Laptop components are a comprimise, performance verses weight, reliability verses weight, durability verses weight, and all three comprimised by a given price point in the market. For example the lower priced laptops are going to be made from cheap plastic verses metal alloy or metal/plastic composite housings found in the $2,000 to $3,000 range laptops. All are prone to breaking but the cheap plastic units break and crack without much effort.

If you drop a laptop its probably headed to the landfill, I like that commercial I think IBM is running where the guy drops the laptop in a bar to test this hard drive airbag thing, I'm like yeah the hard drive survived but the display shattered and the case is a cracked pile of parts. A coffee, soda, and probably machine coolant will also send one to the scrap heap.

Accidents asside even if you baby a laptop it can still go belly up on you for no fault of your own. They run hot, network cards fail, drives fail, displays fail, internal power circuits fail, motherboards fail, memory fails. The better notebooks are designed so that these individual components can be replaced but the parts are not cheap. On cheaper laptops some of these are built into the motherboard so if one fails the whole thing needs to be replaced.

Now consider the lowely desktop computer, they run and run for years with nary a problem. Sure there are some failures but they are few and far between compared with notebooks and replacement components are cheap. They are also easy to repair. Ever take a notebook apart? That can be quite time consuming.

Desktops are cheap, really cheap. You can buy a refurbished Dell in the 2.4ghz range with 500mb of memory for about $400 with Windows XP, keyboard, mouse, and speakers. Monitors? No need to buy a new one, there are millions of used CRT monitors available from surplus/used equipment dealers. I purchased a 17 inch Sony trinitron flat screen monitor for my cnc setup for only $75.

Performance? A desktop will run circles around a notebook pc. Buy any notebook and for probably half the cost you can buy a desktop that will leave it in the dust.

Reliability? Would you buy servo's, breakout boards, power supplies, or controllers for your cnc machine that were prone to over heating, freezing, or otherwise failing in the middle of a run? Desktops are far more reliable. Our ratio of notebook to desktop failures is probably 500 to 1. Mostly if you are going to have a hardware failure with a desktop, it will fail within the first couple of weeks. If it last that long it will probably last its expected lifespan.

Notebooks are cool, and hey they are the right tool in some cases. I often work at home and so I'm glad I have a notebook so I'm not tied to the office but for a cnc machine...my vote is go with a desktop and if you want to spend money on something cool buy a flood coolant kit or a quick change tool gadget.

[CNCPlastic]

Also, you might talk to replicapro, he was going to use his notebook and his parallel port was all funky. You can run into this on a desktop too as I did but with a desktop its easy enough to install a parallel port card to fix it $25.

The number of input pins is limited, only 5 and with one dedicated to e-stop that leaves only four. I used 3 for my home switches and had to group the 3 limit switches to a single pin so now I have none for coolant or other uses. Some people install a second parallel port to gain another 5 pins, can't do that on a notebook.

Some newer notebooks only have 3.5vdc available internally, Mach2 mentions this in the doc as an issue I think.

I also just noticed that you plan to run your design software on the thing, this will be more enjoyable on a fast desktop and with a larger screen. I have a pretty good IBM notebook (T-40) loaded with 500mb of memory and my aging 2.26ghz desktop leaves it in the dust. Thats because you can put a big mother of a high performance video card in the desktop that will chomp through all that floating point graphics math and the desktop hard drives are way faster.

[marvinstov]

I tried a couple laptops and couldn't get them to work for me of course I didn't persue it very much either. I bought two computers for my shop, both came with Windows 98. Both together with monitors and keyboards cost about $75.00. They are Pentium 133 mhz which may not be enough power for what you want but for me, they are great. Bought one on e-bay and one at a local pawn shop. Bought extra 2gig hard drives for each for another $20 total. Both have CDROM drives for transferring large files (Don't have a network). I don't know your situation but this setup works good for me. I do all my drawing and programming on my PC in the house where the airconditioner is. Only other thing I did after setting them up was buy a couple color 9" monitors so they wouldn't take up so much room. The CPU and my power supply act as stands for the monitors. If they blow up I haven't lost much, always keep backup of my programs on the PC in the house.

Marv

[fyffe555]

DAB,

you're talking of using a laptop to drive the machine and leave your PC in the house, yes?

I do this with a few adjustments. As the good advice already here notes there's a few things to watch, but the compromise that is a laptop works fine for me and I take it back and forth as needed. I use a buffer between laptop and machine and think I need to optoisolate it too.

The laptop PP can be 5v or 3.3v high, most are 5v (ttl) though. Some drivers can use either, some require 5v, thats specific to your driver card.

More often the problem is not voltage but that parallel ports can source much less current (ma) than 'real' pc's, and not enough to drive the logic of the driver card. That occured with all three (IBM, Tosh, Dell) laptops or recent vintage I tried. If your card doesn't work with a laptop because of insufficient voltage or current source you can put in some kind of buffer between the two to accept the laptop's signal and provide sufficient power to switch the driver logic. the problem is as much to do with the driven device as the laptop, after all the laptop can drive a printer can't it?

Most recent LPT driven printers don't use all the signals/pins a LPT has, including some of those we use (2-9, 10-13 etc). That's driver specific. If you've tried cutting up a few cables you'll have found most printer cables have only 8 to 13 conductors. Some Laptops appear to have some the same setup under an OS too. This can usually be fixed by setting the port type in bios to another Port standard, SPP, bidirectional, EPP, ECP or whatever the bios supports.

Not that it matters with Mach2, TurboCNC uses a motherboard hardware timer to determine its step rates. This varies wildly with different sytems and especially laptops. I have a 166mhz laptop that's slower than a 486 desktop and a 300mhz laptop that I use that is 3 times faster than my P4 3ghz PC...

So, it's a fine idea to use a laptop because they're less prone to dirt etc, easy to walk out the shop with it and you can use it next to the PC or machine while setting up. They're not as robust as a real PC, don't drop it and if paranoid use a seperate power supply too. They can be a problem if the Voltage or Ma sourced isn't enough but you can buffer that. Try to get a Laptop that you can get into the bios and change the parallel port settings on.

Finally a goof on my part blew the parallel port on a laptop, this killed the laptop Motherboard too.. need to optoisolate the current one....

[cadcam]

I Have both but take the laptop to all the costomers to do work.
Love having it makes life easy as I use to carry a full computer with a 17" LCD monitor.

Now I take a full laptop with a 16.1 Screen and a good Nvidia video and all the tools needed to program and run cncs all day.

I did have to buy a Serial port card to use for DNC to the CNC's but no trouble after that.
You can get one that has dual ports for 70 bucks.

But I use mine for Cad-Cam & DNC for cnc's.

Just have to know what to llok for and as someone all ready explaned you most likey will spend over $2,000 or higher to get some thing to work well for this type of stuff.

I just went to a dealer camp for the Cad-cam software I sell and there were 30 diffrent dealers with all kinds of makes and models of laptops.

I would say after talking with all my Toshiba was one of the best for perfomance and price.

JM2C

[Dan S]

Cadcam

have you had to buy a new battery yet for your Toshiba? My father had one and after about 2 yrs, it needed a new battery. the cheapest he could find was around $200. He got rid of the lap top because the battery would be worth more than the machine.

[cadcam]

Dan when I buy laptops I get the extented warnnty.
I do need to replace it now and it is about that much.But with the 3years extened warnnty this includes a new battrery for at least the 3 years.

The warnnty cost me $250.00 to cover the hole thing.including the larg LCD screen.

I have been offered over a $1000 for it the way it stands.
I will give some of the spec's

2.53 CPU
1 gig ddr ram
60 gig 5400 rpm drive
Nvidia gforce 32 meg video( would not mind more,but have not had any troubles with large cad files)
16.1 crisp clean lcd screen. ( love this screen)
DVD burner & CD burner all in one.

I am running WinXP Home(bought a Lic of Pro but found I did not need it for it.)

Few of the softwares I use it for:

Mastercam ver:
V6
V7
V8
V9
VX Beta

Predator:
DNC
VCNC Varifacation
Editor 6.1
MDC (Data collection)

Solid Works:
2004

Vericut:
4.53

Office 2003:
Outlook
Access
Power point
Viseo
Project
word
Excel
Publisher
Front Page

Adobe:
Adobe Acrobat 5.0
Adobe Photo 7.0

These are normals to run on my sevrial of my computers.
Lap does well with them all.