rt-stepper 1.7.8

The rt-stepper program along with it's USB-to-parallel dongle is a real time stepper motor CNC gcode virtual machine. rt-stepper works with existing CNC controllers that only support a parallel port. rt-stepper is a small ncurses terminal program that can run on any OS that supports libusb. Both manual and auto CNC operations are supported.<br /><br />rt-stepper is an open source software, but the dongle is sold as a product.<br /><br />Developer comments<br /><br />I developed this product after using EMC for several years with my Sherline CNC mills. EMC works great, but requires a PC with a real-time kernel and a parallel port to control the mill.<br /><br />I have two mills and two CNC controllers - Camtronics and Xylotex. In order to drive these controllers your PC must have a parallel port. For space consideration a notebook is my ideal PC for driving my controllers. There are older notebooks with parallel ports, but notebooks with parallel ports are a thing of the past. I want to be able to upgrade to the newer notebooks, but still use my old CNC controllers.<br /><br />Then there is the EMC real-time kernel requirement. Normally this means you have to re-boot to run your gcode program or have a dedicated PC to execute the gcode. I want to develop my gcode program on my favorite OS, then execute the gcode on the same PC.<br /><br />With the rt-stepper solution the parallel port and real-time kernel requirements have been eliminated. rt-stepper has no special runtime requirements, other than ncurses and libusb, so rt-stepper runs on most OSs such as Linux, Mac and Windows.<br /><br />Currently I'm eating my own "dog food" with this product. This means I actually use rt-stepper to build the USB-to-parallel dongle. Both the dongle PCB and case are milled with rt-stepper. You don't get a feel for a product unless you use it.

Requirements:	No special requirements
Platforms:	*nix, Linux
Keyword:	Controllers,  Dongle,  Execute,  Gcode,  Kernel,  Libusb,  Means,  Milled,  Mills,  Ncurses,  Notebooks,  Parallel,  Ports,  Product,  Program,  Realtime,  Requirements,  Rtstepper,  Usbtoparallel,  Works
Users rating:	0/10