Running Centroid CNC In Virtual PC Environment

[automatedingenuities]

I have searched the forums and cannot find an answer to what I am about to pose, and although it sounds a bit of a crazy idea, it just might work.

I have a need for multiple Centroid Acorn boards to run my various CNC machinery. Currently I have 3 CNC machines, a router, a mill, and a lathe. All of them I wish to convert to Centroid Acorn control instead of Mach3. Having 3 current machines, and with my future investment of another foreseeable 3 CNC machines, I really don't want to have to purchase 6+ computers, monitors and peripherals to run my machines.

What I am posing is if I can purchase a server computer instead of separate computers, and create a bunch of virtual machines, each running their own iteration of licensed windows 10, and install Centroid control software on each iteration? I have checked the hardware requirements for Centroid control software, and server machines are available (10 core 2.2 ghz processor, 32gb of ram, 19,000 cpu benchmark). What this would mean is that, I would have the potential to run up to 8 iterations of windows 10, and Centroid control software, all on one tower server.

Now I realize that Centroid requires an ethernet port and most computers are only supplied with one, but quad port network adapters are available which can allow you to install a network card in the pci/e port of the computer and expand the ports. Also to solve the networking issue, bridged networking is possible with either windows hyper-v or with other services like virtualbox. What this means is that each virtual machine can use a different adapter or port in my case, and be on their own discrete private network. Basically your router would look at each virtual machine as a different local area network connection, so you would have 192.168.1.1 -- 192.168.1.2 -- 192.168.1.3 and so on, all on one computer.

The next issue would be the potential lack of monitor, mice and keyboards for each machine. I can solve the monitor issue if I wish to by using the USB 3.0 port on the server and using USB 3.0 to HDMI adapters to expand the monitor inputs from 1 hdmi connection to however much monitors I wish to utilize. I would then obviously start the virtual machine on their respective monitor for each machine. With the USB 3.0 devices I can also expand the keyboards and mice for each virtualbox and lock them into that individual virtualbox. Alternatively I can just remote desktop in to the server on my windows laptop or even a windows tablet, and control which ever Centroid controller I wish to.

Let's realize though, I highly doubt I will ever have the need to run more than 4 machines concurrently, but the option to do so is a pleasing one.

Does anyone have any feedback on the above proposal, or cons that I may not have considered?

Thanks

[Centroid_Liviu]

As long as each virtual machine has its own "Network Interface Card" that can be set to the static IP needed, than theoretically it should work. Since you are way above the min specs and have enough cores and ram allocated to each virtual machine that should also not cause any performance issues. Granted this is something we have never tried and don't officially support but I can't see why it wouldn't work in theory.

[mikes]

Seems like overkill. Are you really going to have 6 machines running at one time? If not, you could lower the specs of the server. Can you set the logical port (not physical) used by cnc12? I would think one Gbit network port (physical) should be enough bandwidth as long as the logical port can be set (not sure that is possible). This is of course assumes TCP is the transport protocol.

Having one server like you propose also introduces a single failure point.

If you think you may only need two or three systems up at any given point in time, you could build two/three PCs and have a multi boot with each boot configured for the one of the 6 machines. Then simply roll one of the PCs over to the machine you need and run the appropriate boot. You could also use a NAS for the storage and effectively have the 6 instances of cnc12 all stored in the network

[Chaz]

I'm curious, can we change from the default 10.x.x.x range to something that will work on an existing LAN such as 192.168.x.x ?

[automatedingenuities]

Seems like overkill. Are you really going to have 6 machines running at one time? If not, you could lower the specs of the server. Can you set the logical port (not physical) used by cnc12? I would think one Gbit network port (physical) should be enough bandwidth as long as the logical port can be set (not sure that is possible). This is of course assumes TCP is the transport protocol.

Having one server like you propose also introduces a single failure point.

If you think you may only need two or three systems up at any given point in time, you could build two/three PCs and have a multi boot with each boot configured for the one of the 6 machines. Then simply roll one of the PCs over to the machine you need and run the appropriate boot. You could also use a NAS for the storage and effectively have the 6 instances of cnc12 all stored in the network

I will admit it is overkill but I can see myself running at least 4 of the machines simultaneously, hence the proposal. I'm hoping the logical port is able to be set by CNC12, that would be the only thing I would really have to confirm.

I agree having one server like you suggested does introduce a single point of failure, but I will have my redundancies with having a raid configuration for the hard drives, but nothing for the hardware aspect. My main driving reason of a server vs a regular computer is cost. Believe it or not for the specs I quoted, that server does not really cost that much $1,100-$1,500. I figure for 6 machines i can save money with one computer being around $600, so after 2 regular computers I am near the cost of a single server. Even if I add monitors and keyboards for each machine at $100 per machine, I'll still be at $1,700-$2,100 total. That's alot less than $3,600. In terms of energy consumption, it would be much less power running one machine vs the 6.

The dual boot idea can work like you suggested, but I'd really have to strategically choose which machines go on which computers.

I'm not sure perhaps the idea is totally unnecessary like you have posed but, the theory is possible, and the practicality is acceptable enough to attempt.

[Centroid_Liviu]

I'm curious, can we change from the default 10.x.x.x range to something that will work on an existing LAN such as 192.168.x.x ?

No, the IP address must be set to a static 10.168.41.1 in order to communicate with the motion control.

[Chaz]

I'm curious, can we change from the default 10.x.x.x range to something that will work on an existing LAN such as 192.168.x.x ?

No, the IP address must be set to a static 10.168.41.1 in order to communicate with the motion control.

A pain in the a$$. CS Labs allow a DHCP offer to be made to allow a LAN. The only way I can therefore use this PC for Centroid control and internet access is either a 2nd NIC or wireless card. I mean, the idea of having the PC online to get gcode etc cant be that much of an edge case? I dont want to need to move USB sticks between the main PC and the machine PC everytime I need a file

[Centroid_Liviu]

A Gigabit USB to RJ45 adapter is $10 if you don't have wireless built in.

https://www.amazon.com/Ethernet-Network ... et+adapter

[mfry]

I'm curious, can we change from the default 10.x.x.x range to something that will work on an existing LAN such as 192.168.x.x ?

No, the IP address must be set to a static 10.168.41.1 in order to communicate with the motion control.

A pain in the a$$. CS Labs allow a DHCP offer to be made to allow a LAN. The only way I can therefore use this PC for Centroid control and internet access is either a 2nd NIC or wireless card. I mean, the idea of having the PC online to get gcode etc cant be that much of an edge case? I dont want to need to move USB sticks between the main PC and the machine PC everytime I need a file

I don't understand the objection. Yes of course you need a second network adapter to communicate with a LAN or internet. They're like $10 if your motherboard doesn't already have 2.

[Chaz]

No, the IP address must be set to a static 10.168.41.1 in order to communicate with the motion control.

A pain in the a$$. CS Labs allow a DHCP offer to be made to allow a LAN. The only way I can therefore use this PC for Centroid control and internet access is either a 2nd NIC or wireless card. I mean, the idea of having the PC online to get gcode etc cant be that much of an edge case? I dont want to need to move USB sticks between the main PC and the machine PC everytime I need a file

I don't understand the objection. Yes of course you need a second network adapter to communicate with a LAN or internet. They're like $10 if your motherboard doesn't already have 2.

Fair enough, still dont understand why the IP cant be changed to suit however.