Machsupport Forum

Mach Discussion => General Mach Discussion => Topic started by: Bagpipes on July 07, 2006, 08:19:38 PM

Title: Should I purchase Mach2 or Mach3?
Post by: Bagpipes on July 07, 2006, 08:19:38 PM

I have a K2 3925 CNC Router. I am a total newbie and have yet to connect the machine up to my dedicated computer. K2 recommended that I should buy Mach2 but since your site has so many excellent tutorials dedicated to mach3 should I consider that software instead?

Title: Re: Should I purchase Mach2 or Mach3?
Post by: Brian Barker on July 07, 2006, 08:50:13 PM

You can install both on the same computer and the license works for both of them :)

I think you should use 3 because there is so much more support and the software is more stable!

Title: Re: Should I purchase Mach2 or Mach3?
Post by: Bagpipes on July 07, 2006, 09:29:56 PM

That's my opinion too - I'm not sure why K2 feel I'd be safer with Mach2. As long as most of the bugs are worked out of version 3 I'm more than happy to commit to that.

Can you tell me if I can run my CNC router on Mach3 alone or do I need an expensive CAD/CAM package too? I used to be a machinist and spent many years programming CNC machine tools using Fanuc controls and writing machine code straight off the top of my head. There were no real CAD or CAM programs out there at the time. Looks to me like Mach3 can do most of what I will need (I make guitars).

What if I needed to profile a convex guitar top with intersecting compound radii? Is that Mach3 and beyond?