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gera229 wrote:Hi gera229,

Do you mean the PC parts or the control box/ steepers, or the whole box and dice including the mill. Actually, the whole box and dice doesn't include the box yet . I'm still scratching my head over that one, but I like Mr Pugh's idea, per the link in your thread.

I paid AU$90 for the D525, plus another $19 for freight. I think that the latter was a bit cheeky, since i ordered the thig a week ago and still haven't got it - although they supposedly had two of the boards in stock here in Sydney when I ordered mine. I have an uneasy feeling about this...

As to the cost of all the other bits and pieces, it was about 5 years ago(!), so I'd have to find the old receipts. I couldn't even put an estimate on it at the moment. What i do remember, however, is that I got the four good-quality steppers for US$20 each, an amazing bargain since their list price is currently $US99/motor! My special bargain price could have been because I bought the mill and other stuff from the same chap.

Hope that makes some sort of sense.

Cheers,
Alex

arch dude wrote:
I must confess to only learning of PXE's existence with your post, which for some odd reason I only just found . I have a bit of digging ahead of me to find out how to do it - whether the ethernet cards in my current machines (G5 PowerMac tower, 2010 (Intel) iMac w/Lion) support pxe is yet another bucket o' snakes. Still, I like learning new things .

As to disk size, i'm currently leaning towards either a 32 or 64 GB ssd, as I will possibly install XP/Mach3 on it "for fun."

Alex.

To use PXE, the boot client (the Atom in our example) must have a PXE client in the BIOS. The Server does not need anything special in the BIOS, since the boot server code runs as a server process initated from the kernel, not the BIOS. In neither case do you need anything special in the ethernet cards. In older computers that do not have PXE in the motherboard BIOS, there may be a PXE client in the portion of the BIOS that resides on an Ethernet card: I don't know. This is not relevant for the Atom motherboards, where PXE is in the BIOS. If you want your server machine to enter "sleep mode" to save energy, I suppose you would need an ethernet card (or port) on the server with "wake on LAN," capability and a BIOS on the server to match: again, I would not know: my home servers are always on, not sleeping.

XP and Mach3 are intrinsically evil . Linux is the One TRUE OS!! However, the use of PXE does not preclude the use of XP. I am not a Windows person, but remote boot is possible for Windows. Even if there were no native way to do it, you could PXE boot Linux and run XP in a VM (KVM for choice.) However, if your current passion is CNC, you will probably have more fun learning EMC and machining rather than the exotica of diskless operation on heterogeneous operating systems.

One idea that I had was to use a small 10" or 12" touchscreen, assuming that 1. the specs are correct and the thing would work with Ubuntu/LinuxCNC (I can see no reason why it wouldn't, unless there might be a motherboard incompatibility) and 2. the screen would survive my grubby (oily) paws.

I did a bit of searching this morning and found that OS X doesn't do PXE as such, but does use bootpd. I'll attempt cross that particular bridge if I come to it, however. At the moment the power supply for the drives (I thInk I may have the wrong transformer) and finding a suitable case are taking up most of the time. RS Australia has a lot of cases that are too small or too expensive. Andy Pugh's extrusion frame looks to be a possible solution.

AlexN wrote:Here is another one (I needed a 20" rack. Not a 19"…) for a 1U server PC.
picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/QiYY_5vRG2...pFm0?feat=directlink
20x20 extrusion and MDF painted black.
(It's easy to expand and contract as needed too)

andypugh wrote:
Hi Andy,

I've been quiet but busy . Many thanks for the link to that photo: I did some digging and came up with a supplier in Oz, viz, Modular Components and Automation. They have a very juicy array of stuff, and I spent some time working through their catalogue of items before sending them an email regarding costs. I'm currently sifting through the price list and advice prior to asking them some more questions. They are more than happy to supply me with the small amount of extrusion required for my setup (which will house a 19" steel rack case - this seems to be the best option after an exhausting search), and will even cut to prescribed length - for a small cost per cut. I'd cut the stuff myself but my metal circular saw's blade is stuffed and the cost of a new blade is (for this job) less than a third of the cost of a new blade. Plus the freight is probably lower for a shorter package.

After an almos- two-week wait for something that was supposedly in stock (probably in stock in the warehouse in HK), the D525 board was picked up by the courier this arvo, so hopefully it will turn up tomorrow. As tomorrow happens to be Friday, I won't hold my breath as couriers in Sydney on Friday are - in my experience - almost totally unreliable on account of the insane Friday traffic congestion here in Sydney. As I don't have anything else to add onto the board or power it up with at the moment - I've been waiting for the board to actually show before doing that - that's probably a moot point anyway. Maybe Monday...