Which computer

Rogbo

Rogbo

H-M Supporter - Silver Member
H-M Supporter - Silver Member
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Aug 11, 2020
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Hi all,

Since medically retiring from an IT career, I just haven't had the desire to turn on a computer. Some of it was problems sitting for extended times, but I worked in a data center at a Fortune 50 and the joke was '12 hour days is half time.' Besides I really enjoyed the hands on of my manual milling machine and old Atlas.

I'm afraid I caught the CNC bug though. I'll probably start with a home built router, simply because I need some wood projects done around the house and property. And I'm not sure I will like the process or be talented enough to want to upgrade my new PM equipment.

So, what kind of computer do I need to purchase to run what kind of software? Will a consumer laptop run Fusion 360 OK? We used beefy workstations and backend servers for aerospace projects at work.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts,

Roger
 
I don't run Fusion 360 but you should be able to get specs from their website, I suspect all but the most anemic unit will be alright.

But, since you're a fellow IT person I's highly suggest checking out FreeCAD and LinuxCNC. I run Ubuntu 20.04 and it's just fine on a middling Intel I5 system with 8gb ram. No need to stay on the Microsoft treadmill if it's not needed for your job and as good as Autodesk is why pay for licenses if you don't have to.

JMHO,

John
 
Rogbo said:
Hi all,

Since medically retiring from an IT career, I just haven't had the desire to turn on a computer. Some of it was problems sitting for extended times, but I worked in a data center at a Fortune 50 and the joke was '12 hour days is half time.' Besides I really enjoyed the hands on of my manual milling machine and old Atlas.

I'm afraid I caught the CNC bug though. I'll probably start with a home built router, simply because I need some wood projects done around the house and property. And I'm not sure I will like the process or be talented enough to want to upgrade my new PM equipment.

So, what kind of computer do I need to purchase to run what kind of software? Will a consumer laptop run Fusion 360 OK? We used beefy workstations and backend servers for aerospace projects at work.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts,

Roger
Click to expand...
I'm running it currently on an older 3rd gen i7-3770K with 32GB RAM and an SSD for the system drive.
Previously I ran it on an 3.40Ghz AMD Phenom II X4 965 with 16GB.
One caveat is that I also run an nVidia card on both. Haven't tried it with standard onboard graphics.
I personally would not want to try it on a consumer grade lappy. Perhaps an higher end 'Engineering' grade lappy.
It would probably work at the beginning but as your use curve increases you might hit a bump in the road.
Only my opinion from (25) years in CAD and such.
YMMV

""the joke was '12 hour days is half time.'""
Ain't that the truth? :grin:
 
You should confirm your hardware requirements for the CNC controllers you want to run. Some work great on USB, some run most reliably on LAN, and still others require serial and/or parallel ports. For the last group, those legacy ports need +5V TTL, and most laptops with those ports run +3.3V TTL, which can cause problems.

You can run CAD on whatever computer you want, then transfer to a correctly compatible computer for machine interfacing.

I have an old dual core Dell engineering computer with a weak Quadro video card and a docking station that puts out the correct +5V TTL on serial and parallel. It runs Solidworks, it's just not as fast as a new machine. It also interfaces with all kinds of electronic projects, ensuring I won't be replacing it. Otherwise, use a desktop CPU if you want both compatibility and speed.
 
My 2010 Macbook Pro runs Fusion fine for smaller projects. It can be a cranky application, but it works well enough for me. It doesn't use the graphics card much, so even the onboard for most somewhat recent machines will work.

Most consumer laptops will be alright, but go for the fastest single core speed you are willing to pay for. It doesn't use multi-core very well. 8GB RAM should be enough, more is always better as any IT guy will know. :) The single biggest thing to get is the fastest SSD you can. My desktop machine runs an NVME drive that made a huge difference in loading big applications like Fusion.

If you can, get CNC controllers with LAN or USB connections. Not needing to deal with legacy ports is a big win. They often want some oddball feature that USB adapters don't support.
 
Running a CAD and CAM system will have different requirements from running the CNC application. I run my CAD (AutoCad) and CAM (Bobcad) on a liquid cooled I7-7700K at with 32GB RAM. but I run Mach3 on some old slow AMD that I had laying around from many years ago. I have disabled the real time path updates to save some graphics processing but that was more eye-candy that useful. I also use a Ethernet based motion controller interface. My recommendation is that if you have a laptop with a physical parallel port, donate it to a museum. Avoid any motion controller that requires a physical parallel port. (I am not aware of any)
 
Thanks all for the input! I hadn't even thought about Linux or FOSS.

So I have a handful of machines from a nice tower with multicore i7 and 32 of RAM down to ancient laptops. I built the big machine oddly named Bigboy when I was studying for my VMware exams years ago, an i5 laptop was from a side job, etc. The problem with all of them from a usable Windows desktop point of view is they've all been test machines and the OS is hosed in multiple ways. Oh well, I'm set for great Linux boxes. I also noticed I have enough credit card points to get a nice enough Dell Latitude with an i5 to run Fusion 360 and such.

I've never done CAD other than messing around with sketch up when it still free. I think I'm going get this laptop on points and try Fusion and FreeCAD. I have some metal projects and wood projects that would benefit from a CNC I can get started with. I guess I better figure out if I can figure out and enjoy the computer aided design piece, before I go spending money on a cnc anything.

All that said, hmmmm maybe I do need a new PM-25MV to CNC up!
 
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