[Noisebridge-discuss] CNC Shop Class

[dpc]

Seth David Schoen <schoen at loyalty.org> writes:

> Jonathan Foote writes:
>
>> * It would be great if we could run the EMC2/AXIS code in simulation
>> mode, so you wouldn't need a VM to run it. Right now it checks for the
>> rtai kernel and craps out if it can't find it. Any gurus want to
>> tackle that? It may mean recompiling, but hopefully it's just a config
>> option someplace I couldn't find. This will let anyone tune up their
>> gcode  and dry run sessions without tying up the machine.
>
> I got the source code for EMC2 2.3.3 and built it on my Ubuntu Jaunty
> system with
>
> ./configure --enable-simulator --enable-run-in-place --with-tclConfig=/usr/lib/tcl8.5/tclConfig.sh --with-tkConfig=/usr/lib/tk8.5/tkConfig.sh
>
> after installing all the indicated build-dependencies (plus tcl8.5-dev
> and tk8.5-dev).  The resulting binary will run and give me a UI on my
> system, which doesn't have a realtime kernel.  But I don't know how to
> use EMC2 at all, so I don't know what else I'd need to do to see if
> the simulator's working appropriately.

if you're running emc w/ ui etc. you should just be able to:

  - open one of the sample gcode files
  - power the machine 'on'
  - 'home' the various axes w/ some button
  - 'run' the gcode. 

for most of the configurations there is a smaller window w/ an inverted
cone representing the spindle (this is the default view). some of the
machine configurations don't show this though (there is a cool hex-a-pod
too in the distro).

\p

---
The style is the man himself - George-Louis Leclerc de Buffon