IMHO, I would and do use this forum as a first option.  Growing this forum grows everyone's knowledge who utilizes it.  I have reached out to Mach Support for issues that pertained to glitches in the screen editor, and have referenced that talk in the post on this forum to keep the thread up to date.

Hi Russ,

I am happy to make the effort to program Mach4 to my liking but maybe you are not.
Craig
IMHO, this should be an option (very nice, BTW), NOT a necessity !
It should work as intended ... in its most basic form.

This is the problem, that for most users Mach4 does not work 'out of the box' and modest adjustments have to be made
to get it to work. Your post regarding the GoToWorkZero function is an example. Not in itself a huge obstacle but
does put new users off.

There is also a perception that if, say Mach3, works a certain way then Mach4 should work identically. This is not the case
in practice. There are a few reasons. One among them is that Mach3 used shortcuts and workarounds to do certain things
but they run contrary to Fanuc21 interpretation. An example is repeated G82 lines in drill files, Mach3 will accomodate
such code whereas Mach4 which adheres to the Fanuc standard does not.

One forum contributor was perplexed, if not outright annoyed, that a signal provided in Mach4 (ISIG_SPINDLE_AT_SPEED)
but didn't actually do anything. His reasoning goes that Mach should behave in a certain way on receipt of such a signal
when in fact Mach does absolutely nothing UNLESS the user programs the desired behavior. This is an example of what I have
found to be an often repeated complaint...'Mach does not behave the way I expect....I want...demand that NFS fix it!'
I have chosen my words carefully, for if you have detected that there is a level of frustration expressed in that comment
that is correct. While some , including the OP in this case overcame that frustration and programmed the behaviour he desired,
many have not, they throw their hands up in despair and drop Mach4 altogether.

We all have ideas about how a CNC program ought to behave and more often than not contrary to someone elses interpretation.
Human nature!

Craig

Losing your customer base while improving your product may result in a great product but is a really bad business decision.
It is amazing how not getting a user manual in the hands of customers even while everything is changing causes everyone heartache. You waste your time answering the same questions over and over, the customer gets frustrated not finding an answer on his time schedule not yours, so walks away from your product.

I am glad to hear those that have persisted are getting good results with Mach 4. The strength of a Windows based CNC besides a nice looking interface is the fantastic productivity you can get by running a Cam program alongside. Yes I know that isn’t recommended, and I don’t switch to the Cam program while machining. There is no denying how effective this is.

I personally think the future is more like the past. A dedicated non-PC running the machine completely while a program like Mach supplies only the user interface. Computer hardware is getting more powerful and cheaper at the same time.

Hello Craig. I understand what you are saying ... and I agree with you.
I need to emphasize "..... in its most basic form."
Like, the code for a mill (2 nice options btw) under a button on a lathe screen.
And a work coord DRO set as un-editable.
Not aware of any others at this point, but must suspect that there are more.
Customization is great, but these are basics that could be expected to respond as expected, that's all.
With many folks, "A first impression ... is a lasting impression" be it good, or bad.
These teeny "most basic" issues contribute to that impression.
Regards,
Russ

I am happy to make the effort to program Mach4 to my liking but maybe you are not.

There's more to it then that.
Mach4 is not popular for a lot of reasons.


1. It's too difficult to set up. There's a lot of competition out there now, and you can argue that all of Mach4's competitors are easier to setup and use, and don't require any programming for the vat majority of users. It's possible to make a powerful program that's not overly complicated.

2. Cost. Mach4 is more expensive than it's competitors. But there is a legitimate reason for this. The real issue here is their business model.
Most of the competition offers a package of both hardware and software. Because they are making money on their hardware, they sell their software for a lot less money, or in some cases give it away for free.
Artsoft has to charge more for their software, because they don't sell software. Which leads to another issue.

3. 3rd party hardware. Mach4 decided to stick with the same flawed system they had with Mach3, where the user has to rely on a 3rd party to stay up to date with their plugins, or to even implement features that the user may need. How many motion controllers can be considered fully functional at this time, supporting all of Mach4's features? Remember, Mach4 was released over 3 years ago.
With the competiton's products, the hardware and software development is always in sync. New features work immediately, and you don't need to figure out who's at fault when something doesn't work.

I'm one of the people that has moved on to other software, although my old machine still runs Mach3.

I was an early purchaser of Mach4, over 3 years ago. I watched the (slow) development for over a year, before deciding it was time to move on.

In the same way that different people prefer different CAD and CAM programs, they also prefer different control software. Because Mach4 is so very different from Mach3, many of the tens of thousands of Mach3 users find that it's just too different from what they are used to.

This is just my 2 cents.
When setting up a new machine there are so many different things to set up. Having to learn LUA on top of all this just really sucks. I can understand more custom stuff but i think set up for more basic stuff should be a lot easier. 
I have stuck with Mach 4 and i like it now but i think having to learn LUA is just way too much.
Not putting down the Mach 4 guys because i realise how much work is involved in creating brand new software so i thank the team for this.

Remember, the vast majority (95%+?) of users are not programmers, and have no desire to become programmers. They just want to run their machines.
For every Mach4 users that likes it, there are probably 25 people that aren't going to bother learning Lua, which they shouldn't have to do.
They basically eliminated 90% of their potential user base.

Hi Gerry,
good straight talking stuff...I like it.

You are correct very few CNCers are programmers or want to be. As it stands, effectively, you cannot use Mach4
without at least a little programming. As you also point out given the third party hardware model, set up is far from
straight forward counting against widespread adoption by hobbyists.

That I stuck with it until I became familiar enough to start programming, which I might add is VERY satisfying, is more
about my own interest and skillset than being representative. With that said I now have a very flexible CNC solution
but recognise that many may never arrive at that situation.

That brings me back to the question I posed that started this thread 'Is Mach4 really a hobby grade material?'.
If it is accepted that hobbyists are not by and large programmers then the answer is no.
If you are prepared to learn Lua/Mach/wxWidgets then the answer is yes.

Craig

Hmm....this may turn out to be a very interesting thread.

I am thinking that I'll just waite for Russ to figure Mach 4 all out and then can just call him to bring me up to speed in short order. 

RICH

Graig,
Can you provide a wild ask guess on long it may take a current Mach 3 user to:

- Transition from Mach3 mill and lathe to Mach 4 mill and lathe and be capable with both?
- Learn to create say a rather complex screen page?
- Be able to do the Lua coding / programing as compared to what was used for Mach 3?

Just some wild ask time frames,

RICH