Computer/laptop recommendations

[ItsHenry (Henry Bennett)]

Hi looking for suggestions for computers/laptops which would be great for working with the Shapeoko 3.
Budget £600
Thank you

[WillAdams (William Adams (Carbide 3D))]

The community has notes on this at: https://wiki.shapeoko.com/index.php/Carbide_Motion_Machine_Control_Software#Known_working_configurations

I think a fanless/sealed tablet with an active stylus is the best option — a numeric keypad (some folks like a wireless one) is a nice option.

[ItsHenry (Henry Bennett)]

Thanks,do you know if an iPad Pro with the Apple Pencil would work as I already have one if these?
Kind regards

[WillAdams (William Adams (Carbide 3D))]

Unfortunately, an iPad Pro can’t be used to (directly) control the machine — it won’t function as a USB host device, and there’s no software in the App store for this sort of thing.

You can instead use a small single board computer and connect using a tablet interface such as: https://wiki.shapeoko.com/index.php/Carbide_Motion_Machine_Control_Software#Network_Connectivity

connect with a browser to port 8080

http://yourmachine_name_or_ipaddress:8080

I’d also suggest looking into Shapr3D and MeshCAM (some discussion of that here).

Previous discussion:

iPad Pro + Apple Pencil.....Workflow in general

You may want to check out It’s a simplified parametric modeler built around IPad pencil. I haven’t used it but reviews seem to be good. You’ll need a paid account for export but last time I checked it was cheap. A buddy uses it and imports into fusion 360 for cam. Forgot to mention they have free version for trying it out.

[ItsHenry (Henry Bennett)]

Hi will thank you for all the information you have gave me I’ll look into this.
Kind Regards