Machsupport Forum
General CNC Chat => Building or Buying a Wood routing table.. Beginnners guide.. => Topic started by: RickyBobby8675309 on August 20, 2023, 06:08:43 PM
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Hello,
I have recently got into CNC machines and want some help/suggestions for what I think is called a Break Out Board. I have an Industrial Machine CNC machine 4x8 and want to fix or update the machine. Earlier this year I had the machine working with the factory UC100 controller and breakout board. Unforchanetly shortly after the machine was up and running the UC100 parallel port controller was ripped out of the machine and someone else tried to install a cheap BOB from Amazon but did not succeed(cut wires). I am in the process of either repairing the machine to the original configuration or updating it to a USB or Ethernet BOB that works for Mach 3.
My questions are_
-Does anyone have pictures or diagrams of an Industrial Machine CNC cabinet wired up, mainly the Spindle controls, E stop, and inverter button
-Does anyone have recommendations for a BOB that would be an easy replacement for the original BOB that runs on Mach 3
I would appreciate any help
Jeremy
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Hi Jeremy,
its better if you do it the other way around, post some pictures of the machine, control cabinet showing the installed parts and then we can see what you will need. In most cases its not a big problem if its already been on a known controller.
Where are you based?
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Located in Lubbock, Tx. I will take photos tomorrow and post them.
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Here are some images of the machine
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Here are the rest of the pictures I have.
The CNC machine is used in a custom car audio shop for Subwoofer boxes and templates related to car audio.
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A square on picture of the relay board would help but :-
looking at what you have there you could use an old pc with a parallel port and just connect a cable to the relay board or you can invest in a motion controller e.g. Ethernet Smoothstepper or CS-Labs IP-M or one of the many more out there.
If you have an old PC with windows XP and a parallel port and LPT cable I would use that as it will run that without much messing about and if all is good swap to an ESS later if needed.
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I would be interested more in upgrading to the ESS as we have either a windows 10 laptop or windows 11 PC to run the machine on. What is your recommendation for an ESS that would suit my application?
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Here is another picture of the board, what I don't have working now is the E stop, inverter button and spindle control.
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Do you have the manual for this board or a link for it?
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I have no information on this board, it came with the machine. Any number I look up on the board doesn't come back to anything that I have found.
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I spoke with my boss today and he wants to update the board to a ESS to run mach 3 on our windows 11 PC.
What would be a BOB/Controller to buy that would be simple to set up and have minimal issues down the road?
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Just my opinion…
If running Mach3 is your only option then the best combination is the Warp9TD motion controller using one of their recommended BoB’s running under WindowsXP.
You must bear in mind that Mach3 is now obsolescent (old) and was developed around Windows95 / Windows98 / WindowsXP and as far as I am aware none of the current motion controller manufacturers still support Mach3.
Ideally you should be looking to the future (Mach4) and re-build your machine so it will be good to go for the next 10 years or more and have trajectory planner, motion controller as well as full Windows11… support.
Again, I believe the Warp9TD motion controller to be the way to go for running Mach4 under Windows11 but, as we speak, there are still bugs being discovered and resolved.
Tweakie.
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I'm not against upgrading to mach 4, just Mach 3 is what we have been using.
If I went to mach 4 what controller/BOB would be the easiest to set up and have ample support? The Warp9TD motion controller a good option?
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It is difficult to objectively recommend any product but, from experience, I have learned that there will always be future CNC machine operational issues which need to be resolved. To this end support from the manufacturers of both the trajectory planner and the motion controller is invaluable. I don’t consider moving from Mach3 to Mach4 to be an upgrade but rather a move towards the future.
Warp9TD have good support for their product and in my opinion their ESS together with Mach4 running Windows11… it is the way forward.
Having said that I still use Mach3 with WinXP and the LPT parallel port more often than I do Mach4 with the Warp9TD, ESS, Win11 combination. Both setups produce excellent results but each has its own advantages / disadvantages when it comes to switching between rotary spindle and laser usage.
Tweakie.