Messages

11

General Mach Discussion / Re: what computer for Mach3 - is "all in one" OK - is a parallel port mandatory?

« on: March 04, 2017, 11:34:50 PM »

Yes, I see the cable might be wrong.
USB is limited to 5 meters cable lengths without amplification (non active USB cable), however the longer the cable is the higher the risk for noise problems will be,
mostly because the impedance of the ground wire will become higher and so the 2 ground points (PC and the external board) will be worse pinned together.
We recommend no more than 2meters of USB cable.

Anyways, that error message is sure not caused by a wrong USB cable, except if the cable was not working at all (cut cable) and so then the UC100 was never recognised by the computer, then the USB drivers could not be copied by Windows and that again causes a Mach3 defective plugin message.
Unfortunately Mach3 does not show details about why it can't run the plugin, it only shows this general message whatever problem there is with the plugin.

And I agree about the importance of customer support, I'm working for more then 10 years in customer support at CNCdrive.

And thank you for the info about the Amazon seller, I don't know yet who is selling at Amazon (I've never used Amazon services, because we are not in the USA and there is no Amazon in the EU), but will try to look it up and ask why they did not give support.

12

General Mach Discussion / Re: what computer for Mach3 - is "all in one" OK - is a parallel port mandatory?

« on: March 04, 2017, 11:00:01 PM »

Yes, I understand, but you should really read the product manual before installing the device.
In the manual this particular type of issue is described with a printscreen of the error message and description of what to do.
You just have to install the prerequirement (the .NET framework 2.0 available for download on the UC100 page and also on Microsoft's website), otherwise Windows and therefor Mach3 can't run the plugin.

By the way, did you also ask the distributor shop who you bought the device from? They also did not reply? I'm curious.

And yes, the e-mail was really outdated and again sorry for not sending a reply, it sometimes happen unfortunately, because we receive a large number of e-mails and it can happen that we overlook one,
if this happens anytime in the future with anybody then please resend the e-mail. We reply within 24hours always (except on holidays and weekends), so if we don't answer in one day then there is an issue with receiving or with us missing to see the email and then please resend it.

13

General Mach Discussion / Re: what computer for Mach3 - is "all in one" OK - is a parallel port mandatory?

« on: March 04, 2017, 04:28:41 PM »

I have tried to locate your e-mail and found one unanswered, this was it:

"I downloaded this driver as close to instructions as possible.  Following the instructions to page 3, it says start Mach3 and that box appears.

It don't.  Instead a box pops up saying Plugin DLL Defective Reload with a box to check that says okay.  Check that box and another box drops saying UC100 V2_146-Defective Plug Found.

How can I correct this.  Please make it simple as I am not a computer geek."

I guess this was yours, because I could not find any more unanswered e-mails in our system.
And I'm sorry for not answering, it seems we've missed to see this e-mail somehow.

However the answer to your issue is described in the UC100 manual, in the point 5. in the manual: http://cncdrive.com/MC/UC100%20datasheet/UC100%20users%20guide.pdf

14

General Mach Discussion / Re: what computer for Mach3 - is "all in one" OK - is a parallel port mandatory?

« on: March 04, 2017, 04:56:17 AM »

Okay guys,  I bought a UC 100 because I have a windows 7 64 bit computer.  I bought the UC 100 and could not get it to work.  No matter how I installed it.   It was always the same answer.  No controller found. check connections. This was a $135 controller from Amazon and suppose to be Mach3 workable.
http://www.cncdrive.com/UC100.html .  I sent this driver back.  Now can any one give me a address for one that works or is it best to convert this computer to XP or windows 32 bit

thank you  Johnny

I wish you e-mail us with your problem, I'm sure we could help you to resolve your problem.
The only case when we could not help is if it was a fake UC100.
I mean unfortunately some chinese company flooded the internet with fake UC100 devices, they used the popularity of the UC100 and named their own chinese "garbage" motion controller UC100,
when it has nothing to do with our UC100 device. If you got a fake device then unfortunately there is nothing we could do and then really the best is if you return the device and report the problem to amazon, ebay, banggood or what the shop was where you made your purchase.

So, I want to warn customers to please only buy UC100 controllers from known sources, from one of our listed distributors: http://www.cncdrive.com/distributors.html
And if anyone has any doubts about if a UC100 they want to purchase from an untrusted/unknown source is real or fake then please take the time and e-mail us before the purchase and we will be happy to help to verify that.

We do our best to fight these counterfreight criminals, but unfortunately shops like e-bay are no help in fighting fraud,
they not doing anything to protect their buyers from fraud. When we e-mailed them several times about the counterfreights they did nothing,
and so we guess that it does not matter for them as far as selling the fakes make them some profit.

Also please note that the fake devices are all packed into metal enclosures and they have no serial numbers printed on the side of the devices.
The real devices all have a unique serial number and our packed into plastic enclosures, so in most cases (I can't say in all of them) it is easy to identify the fakes.

15

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Going from command G0 to G1 program hangs

« on: March 03, 2017, 01:07:52 PM »

Please see this thread: http://www.machsupport.com/forum/index.php/topic,34338.0.html

16

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: UC100 Mach4 Lathe G83 fail

« on: February 28, 2017, 08:02:48 PM »

I'm one of the developers at CNCdrive, I'm the one who the OP discussed this issue with in e-mail,
so I thought to quickly clarify a few things so others will also know this when reading.

The UC100 currently can't cut threads with Mach4, so it can't be used for most lathe works,
because we could not fit our code to the Mach4 thread cutting interface yet,
we just could not make that work as calling some lathe functions just freezing up Mach4 and we could not figure out why yet, so we put this part of the development apart at the moment, but will contact the Artsoft guys as soon as we will find the time, so hopefully we can then resolve this issue.

So, the important thing is that the UC100 will not work with Mach4lathe at the moment, it works only with the Mach4mill, so please do not buy a UC100 if you want to use Mach4lathe,
because it currently can't cut threads with Mach4, so it is yet useless with Mach4lathe.

Thank you.

17

General Mach Discussion / Re: Help A axis slaved to Y homing problem

« on: February 23, 2015, 12:21:26 PM »

If you have a single home switch for the master and slave axis then set the slave's home pin to zero, that way the UC100 will home your master and slave together.

18

General Mach Discussion / Re: Problem with using mill with 3d print head

« on: November 18, 2014, 02:59:01 PM »

I suggest you to try to lower the kernel speed of your UC100 on the Plugins-UC100 I/O monitor screen to strech the step pulse width.

19

Mach3 under Vista / Re: uc100 in windows 7 having brain farts

« on: June 24, 2014, 02:22:55 PM »

How do you mean db9 connector, the UC100 has no such connector...

20

General Mach Discussion / Re: Any Practical, Working, Supported Alternatives to the Parallel Port

« on: June 24, 2014, 05:21:03 AM »

Khalid.

Mach3 is who precalculates the path and not the UC100, so the rounding of the corners are calculated by Mach3.
Also it is logical that it rounds the corners in CV mode, because the controller tries to keep the velocity constant which is not possible
in sharp corners as the machine axis need to be deccelerated and accelerated to go into and out of the corner.
The corners could be more sharp if you set the acceleraions of the machine axis higher.
(If your machine mechanics can tolerate that.)

If your machine could do infinate acceleration and decceleration then the corners would be sharp,
because then there would be no need to do any acceleration/decceleraion paths, so the time for these could be zero.

And you may set the CV stop angle to for example 89° then for corners on rectangle shapes will still be sharp
as Mach3 will cancel the CV mode on 90° angles.