Messages

1

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 or Mach3

« on: February 16, 2015, 09:20:31 PM »

Thanks so much. Totally overlooked that download. Sorry...

Sig

2

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 or Mach3

« on: February 16, 2015, 08:13:22 PM »

Thanks for the reply.

Seems if I do go with Mach4, I simply need to purchase the Darwin plugin for my parallel port. Since I can find no place to download Darwin, does it come with the Mach4 Hobby version?

Thanks
Sig

3

Mach4 General Discussion / Mach4 or Mach3

« on: February 16, 2015, 02:37:31 PM »

Ok guys, looking for some advice but first a little background.

I have purchased my X2 mini mill, installed my CNC Fusion conversion and have a Windows 7 machine running Mach3 which can successfully "jog" the table and spindle accordingly through a PCI-E based parallel port. I have no background in CNC work but have spent a fair amount of time looking through G-Code examples and feel extremely comfortable bridging the gap between G-Code and the actual machine movements (my day job is as a Java programmer). I have not purchased Mach3 or 4 as of now. Now for my 2 basic questions...

First, should I stick with Mach3 or start out of the gate with Mach4? From reading the literature on both, I take it that to use the existing parallel port config I have, I need a legacy Mach3 license but the cost is not the issue. I would purchase both if necessary but which to start with?

The second question is, is LazyCam sufficient to import simple 2x3 inch graphics and create correlating G-Code for engraving?

Thanks
Sig