Mac CNC

[John252058]

Does anyone have experience with using Mac to operate CNC mill or lathe, who has the best operating system.

 

[Ray C]

Does anyone have experience with using Mac to operate CNC mill or lathe, who has the best operating system.

I assume you're talking about a machine controller such as Mach III, Centroid or other hardware control platform. If so, you won't want to run that on a general purpose computer. The machine controller should run on a dedicated machine with little to nothing else burdening it.

In the last year of looking for CAM (toolpath) software, I don't recall seeing any with support for MAC OS. I suppose you could run a Virtual Machine and run it under that but, I would proceed cautiously there as most will require pretty tight control over the graphics card -and that's a weak area for most VM software.


Ray

 

[Hawkeye]

Keep in mind that the data stream that runs the motors through the operating software, such as Mach 3, must be uninterrupted. If the computer has to think about anything else, such as anti-virus scans, screensavers or any other program running at the same time, the cutting tool's path will be different than what you intended.

That's why it requires a dedicated computer. No internet. No wifi. Nothing to distract it. Even power management routines on a laptop can cause problems. As in ... you set up your CNC and start it cutting, then no more inputs. Just stand back and watch it work. After 15 minutes or half an hour, the computer tells the display to dim the screen. Bingo! It just thought about something else and your toolpath has been changed.

 

[dave2176]

Who makes the best operating system? Not willing to take that bullet.

However there seems to be two commen environments for lathe or mill hobby CNC. Mach 3 running on Windows and LinuxCNC. The latter is Ubuntu 10 with EMC 2 control software and is open source i.e. free.

I'm not aware of control software for the Mac but there are software that can be used to create 3D models on a Mac to use within your CAM program to generate G code. I've read that Mach 4 will run on Linux as well as Windows but don't know if Mac will be supported.

Dave

 

[bloomingtonmike]

Keep in mind that the data stream that runs the motors through the operating software, such as Mach 3, must be uninterrupted. If the computer has to think about anything else, such as anti-virus scans, screensavers or any other program running at the same time, the cutting tool's path will be different than what you intended.

That's why it requires a dedicated computer. No internet. No wifi. Nothing to distract it. Even power management routines on a laptop can cause problems. As in ... you set up your CNC and start it cutting, then no more inputs. Just stand back and watch it work. After 15 minutes or half an hour, the computer tells the display to dim the screen. Bingo! It just thought about something else and your toolpath has been changed.

Where in the world did you come up with this???

 

[dave2176]

Where in the world did you come up with this???

Tormach released an engineering document called Tormach Machine Controller that explains interrupts and missed steps very well. While Hawkeye's explanation is overly simplified it is still accurate.

Dave

 

[JimDawson]

Keep in mind that the data stream that runs the motors through the operating software, such as Mach 3, must be uninterrupted. If the computer has to think about anything else, such as anti-virus scans, screensavers or any other program running at the same time, the cutting tool's path will be different than what you intended.

That's why it requires a dedicated computer. No internet. No wifi. Nothing to distract it. Even power management routines on a laptop can cause problems. As in ... you set up your CNC and start it cutting, then no more inputs. Just stand back and watch it work. After 15 minutes or half an hour, the computer tells the display to dim the screen. Bingo! It just thought about something else and your toolpath has been changed.

This was exactly my experience with Mach3, I don't know about other systems, and is what prompted me to write my own CNC control software. Mine is immune to Windows losing it's mind.


Back to the original question

Does anyone have experience with using Mac to operate CNC mill or lathe, who has the best operating system.

A quick Internet search show a few options for running a CNC with a Mac. I personally have no experience using a Mac for this.

 

[xalky]

Keep in mind that the data stream that runs the motors through the operating software, such as Mach 3, must be uninterrupted. If the computer has to think about anything else, such as anti-virus scans, screensavers or any other program running at the same time, the cutting tool's path will be different than what you intended.

That's why it requires a dedicated computer. No internet. No wifi. Nothing to distract it. Even power management routines on a laptop can cause problems. As in ... you set up your CNC and start it cutting, then no more inputs. Just stand back and watch it work. After 15 minutes or half an hour, the computer tells the display to dim the screen. Bingo! It just thought about something else and your toolpath has been changed.

This is absolutely true. You can interrupt a print document, the printer will wait to load more items in the cue, and then continue. You don't want to do such a thing with a running machine tool, you'll crash and bang things up like nobodies business.

Where in the world did you come up with this???

This is well documented and common practice on CNC controlling PCs. It might run if you don't take these precautions, but the consequences for not doing it this way can be very costly and dangerous.

Marcel

 

[bloomingtonmike]

Tormach released an engineering document called Tormach Machine Controller that explains interrupts and missed steps very well. While Hawkeye's explanation is overly simplified it is still accurate.

Dave

So I went and pulled up the "technical document" and here is what it said below. Maybe there is another technical document you meant to site?

Maintenance and Configuration
Software Installation - The controller should be dedicated to operation of a CNC machine. It is not a general purpose desktop PC and treating it as such can introduce problems and result in unreliable operation. While the controller comes with a network port, it is strongly recommended not to connect to one. We recommend against installation of virus protection software, and any connection to the internet whatsoever. This is not a desktop PC and it should not fall under the domain of corporate standards for standard PC software such as virus scanners, remote backup, and network configuration.
We highly recommend against installing any software that does not come from Tormach.

Tormach typed this because they do not want to have to deal with people messing with their PC, WinXP distro, and their tormach Mach settings and be a PC support vendor. Tormach does not have an OS - They have a startup script for mach - thats it.

 

[John Hasler]

This is absolutely true. You can interrupt a print document, the printer will wait to load more items in the cue, and then continue. You don't want to do such a thing with a running machine tool, you'll crash and bang things up like nobodies business.

This is well documented and common practice on CNC controlling PCs. It might run if you don't take these precautions, but the consequences for not doing it this way can be very costly and dangerous.

Marcel

With Linux you can run a process with real-time priority. LinuxCNC does this.