/technologies/motors-and-drives/b/clem-s-cnc-control-project/posts/embedded-systems-and-the-future-of-cnc-like-machinesVery recently I&rsquo;ve been to Embedded World, a trade show in Nuremberg Germany that is focused on embedded systems (as the name implies). What does that have to do with my CNC project? A lot. I don&acute;t actually need a CNC for producing parts ...en-USTelligent Community 12https://community.element14.com/technologies/motors-and-drives/b/clem-s-cnc-control-project/posts/embedded-systems-and-the-future-of-cnc-like-machinesWed, 22 Mar 2023 00:09:02 GMT93d5dcb4-84c2-446f-b2cb-99731719e767:5fdff3a5-d2ff-4ec4-a0a9-5d1434cb687cshabaz1<p>There&#39;s an example of this called Machinekit, there is a version that runs on BeagleBone Black. However the devil is in the detail and in this case all is not rosy, because actually implementing it is full of hurdles for anyone who wants to DIY it. There is a small industry around it, with people selling hardware and selling Machinekit support as I understand.&nbsp;</p> <p>I gave it a shot and was astonished at the mess that it is. There&#39;s no good documentation about how the BeagleBone Black should be interfaced, and some of the builds do not even use real-time capabilities in Linux, for anyone unwilling to pay for support I guess! Also, the real-time engine inside the BBB (known as PRU) is supposed to be used, but (you guessed it), that&#39;s not necessarily supported or configured and there&#39;s little documentation on it.</p> <p>It is possible to use a Pi or otherwise, but personally I&#39;d be sceptical unless I was sure the developers had gone to some effort to use real-time capabilities and it was reasonably stable, because the last thing one wants is for the software to hang for a little bit while motors are spinning. The hardware should be very stable too.</p><img src="https://community.element14.com/aggbug?PostID=25483&AppID=391&AppType=Weblog&ContentType=0" width="1" height="1">