Machsupport Forum

Mach Discussion => General Mach Discussion => Topic started by: 9fingers on July 21, 2011, 03:09:44 PM

Title: Mach3 and Small form factor PCs
Post by: 9fingers on July 21, 2011, 03:09:44 PM

I am just starting out in planning a CNC conversion of a small mill.

I don't have a lot of space in the workshop and so I'm thinking of buying a 2nd hand Dell sx280 which is 3Ghz P4 based machine with serial and parallel ports and would appear to meet/exceed the processing requirements of Mach3.
Has anyone used this Ultra Small Form Factor machine with Mach3 ?

Spec :  http://support.euro.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/opsx280/en/ug/specs.htm

My chief concern is that what ever the problem that Mach3 has with laptops (?) might also exist with these USFF PCs

Any help gratefully received.

TIA

Bob

Title: Re: Mach3 and Small form factor PCs
Post by: Hood on July 21, 2011, 03:45:26 PM

It is normally the power saving features of Laptops that cause the issues and because Laptops are designed to run from batteries these are often very hard to disable completely.
I use Via Pico mobos in my lathe and one of my mills, they dont have parallel ports  but I use the SmoothStepper anyway so that doesnt concern me. I am also redoing the Bridgeport at the moment and I am using a micro ATX mobo. Although I am again using an external controller with this retrofit I did run the driver test at 100KHz to see what it was like and it is the smoothest I have ever seen on any computer at any frequency, so although I havent actually tried it with the parallel port I would be confident that it would be flawless.
The mobo is an Asus AT5NM10-I

Hood

Title: Re: Mach3 and Small form factor PCs
Post by: 9fingers on July 21, 2011, 03:51:50 PM

Sounds hopeful then Hood!

Thanks

Bob

Title: Re: Mach3 and Small form factor PCs
Post by: ERP on July 21, 2011, 10:19:02 PM

I use an atom D525 based board which has a parallel port.
Works fine.

Title: Re: Mach3 and Small form factor PCs
Post by: rrc1962 on July 31, 2011, 03:12:51 PM

The GX270/280 has a known issue with blowing capacitors as well as motherboard problems.  I have a collection of them.  Never had a problem with the full size towers.