Beware of the Interent. Particularly pinout information

[A_Camera]

Herein lies the deceptively simple fact that any optical r magnetic storage devise is quite capable of expiring without prior warning. I suppose when you bought the SSD you missed the part where they have a predetermined lifespan? Yes sir... Put your swap file (virtual memory) on the main drive -as Microsoft does by default and if you happen to be a trifle shy on RAM, the drive will kill itself just writing to and reading from the outdated, ridiculously over used swap file.

I honestly think you are seeing ghosts...

Of course SSD drives can crash, but so can every other type of memory (regardless of type), and the likelihood of an SSD crash is much less than mechanical HD crash.

[Ryadia]

You don't know that unless you carefully examine it. Pirated embedded Windows is widely used in China.

Yep... Difference here is this is an Australian designed and made product. Knowing the developer created this as part of his final year at Sydney University sort of makes your suggestion incredibly under informed. Universities don't generally award degrees to Graduate Engineers who feel the need to steal stuff to create their final year projects. Australians might be an odd lot but stealing what you can get free is someone of an oxymoron... Or did you miss that part of the conversation?

Ryadia

[A_Camera]

The real problem with separate computer and monitor is the thick cable connecting them, and a separate power supply just for the monitor.

Two cables. Is that really such an issue?

I have to agree, a 19" laptop is compact and in one package if you can find one for $100......and they come with USB input.,,,,but the power down battery saving mode may be a problem......would running it with a power supply connected keep it powered up all the time?

You can disable the automatic power save in any PC. In fact, even my desktop has that feature by default enabled, so it has to be disabled. My HP laptops are connected to power all the time through their own docking stations. Have not noticed any issues, when I undock I can still have very good battery life, same as new. Quite the opposite actually, I have another HP laptop which mostly is in a drawer not connected to power and the battery in that one is basically dead, when fully charged it holds only for about an hour. Why would you expect to have problems with laptop? Of course, I don't use parallel port, but that is the only "problem" I know of.

Maybe I've been looking in the wrong corner for the ideal solution......back to EBAY......wanted, 19" wide screen laptop with XP.....$100.
Ian.

Maybe 19" laptops are a bit rare and expensive, but why do you feel you need 19"? Mine are 14" and they are more than enough for the task. Brand new and excellent quality laptops aren't that expensive today, so why do you want to use XP?

[A_Camera]

Yep... Difference here is this is an Australian designed and made product. Knowing the developer created this as part of his final year at Sydney University sort of makes your suggestion incredibly under informed. Universities don't generally award degrees to Graduate Engineers who feel the need to steal stuff to create their final year projects. Australians might be an odd lot but stealing what you can get free is someone of an oxymoron... Or did you miss that part of the conversation?

Ryadia

If it is a university project it may indeed be a free Linux version in it. Yes, I did miss the part that it is a university project.

[ger21]

Knowing the developer created this as part of his final year at Sydney University

That explains a lot about why the Masso is where it's at development wise.

[InMesh]

What I found was in their promo they ditched all other Ideas of running a cnc as pretty much pointless odd.When I see a good business promoting it's product it does not can the opposition bad practice that .

[Ryadia]

After bitterly attempting to deal with the many oddities of this controller I can say now that I certainly did make a mistake in buying it. I got charged over $100 for 3 proximity switches that never arrived and not even God knows when they are likely to get here. The part that is somewhat incredulous is that there are no clear instructions for it. No follow on documentation and no mouse capability. I don't have an issue with Linux. After all I did once own 'The Linux shop' in Brisbane. What does get me angry beyond all reasonable acceptance of "its coming" is the software itself, not the OS. It takes me back to 1997 when I used linux to power Internet servers. It was all command line then. Any thought of a GUI was treason.

I notice a few hours ago watching a video by one of the guys who first looked at the Masso there was no mention of it anymore. The controller was nowhere to be seen in his demonstration of the router. I'm forming the opinion that its all well and good to take advantage of all the computerized facilities available today but unless you have in your heart, "the work hard" ethic our parents had when they finished almost destroying the world in a war that should never have happened, all you've got is ambition and no way to fulfill it. One man cannot himself run a business like the one selling Masso. Too much gets glossed over and missed in the frantic rush for the next money hit.

Fortunately for me Australia has some pretty tough Consumer laws. Why we need them was always a mystery to me until now. If I can't figure this thing out today, tomorrow I'll go back to using a computer and Linux CNC. A real pity because there is real potential for this controller. Potential that looks like never being achieved.

Ryadia

[Ryadia]

Here we go again... Replying to myself!

I've discovered the shortfall in Masso Controllers. Well at least for use with Chinese CNC routers. The Masso BTW is quite a nice piece of work and well suited to conversion of manual routers like the Bridgeport to CNC but that's not what this thread is about. The Chinese routers have what I've referred to as a 'Black Box' that holds all the electronics and drives the gantry and spindle. It has a big red button called aptly enough the "Emergency Stop button". It's only purpose is to kill all power to everything connected with the router. It also send a signal up two Parallel port pins that software will recognize and if its the supplied pirate copy or even the real thing by Planet CNC it will remove control of the machine from the software.

The Masso controller does not use its own power supply. One version of it looked like it did but that (presumably) was thought to be superfluous and not supplied with the version I bought. So Estop does exactly what it is intended to do. Removes power from everything in the black box including the terminals Masso is connected to. An apparent safety feature (according the Masso's designer) is to boot in an off state. You have to press the Estop button to let Masso know the Estop is working. Got the picture yet? Yep. Hit the button to proceed and wham! Lights out for Masso along with the rest of the electrics it presides over. Estop does exactly what it is designed to do.

This is where it ends for me. "You could try..." is a world famous statement used by sellers of vitamins when you tell them of a particular health issue you hope they can cure with a pill. Well now its gaining a reputation for trying to get what can't be got working. A Masso All-in-one controller that needs other controllers to feed information to. At $150 an hour I bit the bullet and got a 55 year old electronics Wizz Kid in today to pass judgement on this controller. He scrounged around in my "computer store room" and came out with an old Pentium Quad core PC that once was our accounting machine. We always keep a few new hard drives here in case of catastrophe. He put one in the old Pentium and loaded a fresh copy of Linux on it then Installed Linux CNC and 10 or 15 minutes later started cutting Acrylic shapes I'd designed with Vcarve. Best $450 I've ever spent. The Masso is going home in the morning.

Tomorrow I'll unpack the Laser cutter and use a second Linux machine I'll buy in the morning to start cutting up sheets of Acrylic I imported from China. Just to make sure It will all work my Wizz Kid friend is going to check it all out before he flys back home tomorrow afternoon. I'm so happy about this I think I'll change the waving jigger! Finally, after a month this router is doing what its supposed to have done out of the box... Work

Ryadia (the Banana bender)

[CNCMAN172]

Ryadia,
Your not the first user to found out the Masso controller was not ready for prime time. I think the controller caught the eye of many people including myself, but they are kind of slow to release new software updates and several users found the documentation lacking and various features did not work as intended. I do think if they keep working on this controller it might actually become a nice controller. The Chinese have versions of this they call standalone controllers that use LCD screens and reports by users are they actually work. You can't go wrong with LinuxCNC it is a very stable platform and is actually used in the latest versions of the Tormach machines like the 1100, they have a custom version of Linux CNC named PathPilot and it has become very popular in short order.

Russ

[handlewanker]

Hey Ryadia....better attach a shackle to that wizz kid's leg and chain him to your work bench.....never know when he'll be needed next.........otherwise you'll be driving a car in dense fog and hope the lights don't go out.

BTW.......the reason for the need for a 19" laptop screen is at age 78 the numbers on the screen are like chinese characters unless i get a magnifying glass to boost my reading specs a bit......the other reason apart from the thick cable to the computer is the need to have a separate keyboard, but that can be attached to the jointed computer arm.

Just browsed EBAY and "watched" several dozen laptops with Win 7 32 bit and XP etc for around $100.....all but one did not have the original system disc, and of course none were wide screen......I've already got 3 Toshiba 4030 CDT laptop models with 14 1/2" screens ...without system discs........the big problem is they all have only one USB port.....the watched ones mostly have 3 USB ports and some HDMI and AV as well.....I might indulge myself.
Ian.

[Al_The_Man]

AFAIK now you do not need the original disc, Windows will supply a disc if you have the original product key for that particular computer. It won't load on another PC.
The problem of needing a large hi res screen is the graphics used now, far to many IMO, for many years industrial CNC have operated with smaller screens and sufficient graphics to run a CNC machine, you do not need X-BOX Gaming screens.
Al.

[Ryadia]

Hey Handlewanker... What are you on? You're only a kid! 78? Geez mate around here that barely qualifies you for a chair!

You don't even 'need' serial number for some flavors of Windows. I recently bought a legal copy of Windows 7 Pro that doesn't check if its a legal copy or not when you install it. I've also got a legal copy of Windows XP that doesn't need authentication to use. Just need to be wary of where you buy these versions and be sure they are region specific.

Ryadia

[Ryadia]

you do not need X-BOX Gaming screens.
Al.

You speak for yourself Al.
The rest of need huge graphic screens and 10 gig of Video RAM. Have you never been the another planet? Get some of those drugs us old geezer take for pain and you too can enjoy the crap everyone criticizes!

Ryadia

[Ryadia]

Ryadia,
Your not the first user to found out the Masso controller was not ready for prime time. I think the controller caught the eye of many people including myself, but they are kind of slow to release new software updates and several users found the documentation lacking and various features did not work as intended. I do think if they keep working on this controller it might actually become a nice controller. The Chinese have versions of this they call standalone controllers that use LCD screens and reports by users are they actually work. You can't go wrong with LinuxCNC it is a very stable platform and is actually used in the latest versions of the Tormach machines like the 1100, they have a custom version of Linux CNC named PathPilot and it has become very popular in short order.

Russ

The lack of speed in updates is common when just one person is responsible for everything. Perhaps in time, one person will discover they can't do everything simultaneously. It only took me 60 years to realize that!

Ryadia

[A_Camera]

Hey Handlewanker... What are you on? You're only a kid! 78? Geez mate around here that barely qualifies you for a chair!

You don't even 'need' serial number for some flavors of Windows. I recently bought a legal copy of Windows 7 Pro that doesn't check if its a legal copy or not when you install it. I've also got a legal copy of Windows XP that doesn't need authentication to use. Just need to be wary of where you buy these versions and be sure they are region specific.

Ryadia

Don't tell Microsoft...

Those "legit" Windows are called cracked copies in my part of the world...

[Ryadia]

I've no doubt about that my friend but we don't have the population here to warrant stealing from Microsoft. It's called a bulk license or something to that nature. I didn't believe the Software Chick when she said it was 100% legitimate either so I phoned Microsoft. According the less than helpful phone jockey there... This chick buys an unlimited license from MS and then advertisers the software on Google. Go see for yourself:
https://www.softwarechick.com/collections/windows-7

Ryadia

[handlewanker]

Hi, Ry....you're probably right.....I'm offered a $20 fee to re-instal Win 7 32 bit on a computer I've got my eye on in EBAY that currently has Win Vista, so the vender is making $20 for each copy he/she installs if they have that unlimited licence.

BTW Al.......when I tried to install XP on one of my laptops I get a screen message that asks for a system disc to be inserted first......can't get past that......I'm told that each laptop comes with it's own unique system disc and if you don't have it you may as well give it away as after you format the HDD you can't install Win etc......or so I'm told.

The last Windows XP software I bought came with a CD and the licence no..and I had to go online to get the verification key to install the OP system..........the verification key is supplied by Microsoft to your email address when you go online to them and registers your copy of Windows XP as the legal user.......it's 5 years since I did the XP install, but I had to be connected to the 'Net to get the verification key once the licence no. was typed in and the install was started......the verification key is generated for that computer only.
Ian.

[Ryadia]

when I tried to install XP on one of my laptops I get a screen message that asks for a system disc to be inserted first......can't get past that......I'm told that each laptop comes with it's own unique system disc and if you don't have it you may as well give it away as after you format the HDD you can't install Win etc......or so I'm told
Ian.

Laptops and most notebooks use what I call 'glued-in' drivers. You can't install a genuine Windows that isn't specific to the notebook. Having said that... I have an old Dell desktop with Vista 32 home on it that is exactly the same, need a dell disc to re-install Windows. Just about the worst of everything! I bought one of those bulk license Win 7 Pro to install on it. They are a download proposition. Unless you have a CD burner or a program that will put the ISO on a stick, you can't install it. I had no problems installing it. I went to the Dell website and downloaded all the drivers for that model and its as smooth as you'll get from an old PC. Bit slow compared to my i7 workstation with SSDs in it but more than good enough to run Mach3 or Planet USB CNC. Rotten thing won't install Linux!

Ryadia

[handlewanker]

Hmmmm.......so how does a dealer who buys up bulk laptops and resells them, offer Dell Latitude E5500 models, factory refurbished, and will reformat and re-install Win 7 32 bit instead of the Vista it now has?.

Current price is $129 + $20 to re-install Win 7 32 bit.....it's got a 15.4" screen, 4 USB, and a serial port too, 2Gb ram 80 HDD, WIFI, DVD burner, good battery and with charger etc....upgrade to 160Gig HDD if wanted for $20.........just bought one.

My mill is USB connected so that will be a compact parcel, just one thin wire for the charger, a USB for the control and one for the mouse........I like a mouse etc as the touch pad on the keyboard gives me the craps trying to work at arms length
Ian.

[ger21]

Laptops and most notebooks use what I call 'glued-in' drivers. You can't install a genuine Windows that isn't specific to the notebook.

That's not true at all. The drivers are not a part of Windows. You can install any version of Windows you want, and get the drivers from the manufacturer, and they'll work fine, if they are available for that particular version of Windows.