CNC router supply, among other things

[gremilRoute]

I've got a couple of questions regarding a cnc router, as I'm about half way through building a 3 axis one.

My first question is what type of bed would be cheapest and most affective for use with cutting plastic and wood of 150mm thickness (at maximum) ?

Also are there any router drill things that can run on both 110v and 230v? as i'm moving to the states next july.

Also are there any good 3 axis router programs that run on a linux machine, i only need to convert dxf files to g-code and export it, as i own turboCAD. I've seen loads of people use mach 3 on youTube, but i don't think it works on a linux computer.

My final question is what does a 5v log. output for limit/home switch do (i own a AlienCNC DB25 (LPT) Breakout Board), and can it be used with a cnc program?

Thanks in advanced for any responses.

[CarveOne]

Steel, aluminum, MDF, and wood will all do it, but how much accuracy you get depends on a lot of other mechanical issues concerning how it is constructed. Whatever design cnc router you have, or build, can probably be modified to reach the travel range that you require. 150mm is about 6". At full extension travel you will encounter problems with cutter chatter if the machine is not very rigidly constructed.

Any of the 110vac routers can be run on a 110/230vac 1 phase step down transformer, but such transformers won't be cheap if more than a few amps are required. Surplus electronic equipment sites will be the place to look for these.

There is a Linux program available but I don't recall the name of it. You can find out about it in the Open Source CNC Machine Designs forum on CNC Zone.

Don't know what the 5v output is for but I suspect it is provided for something that is related to cnc operations.

CarveOne

[CarveOne]

EMC2 is the name of the software that you need to get for Linux. You can get it here: http://www.linuxcnc.org/

CarveOne

[CarveOne]

On http://www.linuxcnc.org/ you can download a Live CD ISO file that will let you run Ubuntu Linux and EMC without installing anything to your computer. It will let you install Ubuntu Linux and EMC2 anytime you wish to. It will wipe out anything previously on the computer though.

I downloaded it and burned it to a cdrom disk this morning.

CarveOne