Messages

1

Mach4 General Discussion / Mach4 & ESS Dual motor homing

« on: October 05, 2019, 05:56:26 AM »

Hello,

I am looking at purchasing MACH4 and the EES Smooth steeper controller along with one the MB3 breakout boards.
My CNC builds has two motors / drivers for the Y axis.
What I would like to know is, but cannot find an exact answer, can I setup MACh4 / ESS to drive the Y axis using two motors and drivers with separate home sensors?
My plan is to auto square the gantry by homing each Y axis motors automatically.

I am new to CNC so I am not sure if this makes sense, but from what I have read it should be possible, but I just cannot find out 100% before buying the ESS controller and MACH4.

Any help or suggestions on this would be really appropriated.

Thanks

Paul

2

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach 3 or 4 Controller & CNC room MB3 BOB

« on: September 23, 2019, 07:57:31 AM »

Hi Craig,

I am also very tempted to buy a MB3 breakout board for the ESS.
What do you think, looks like an excellent product to me offering many features over a simple low cost BOB.

Have you ordered from CNCroom before? If so are they reliable. They seem to get good reports reading around along with good reviews for the MB3

Thanks

Paul

3

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach 3 or 4 Controller

« on: September 22, 2019, 01:23:21 PM »

Hi Craig,

Thank you for taking time to reply and in such detail.

Taking into account all of your comments, I will purchase Mach4 (When the time comes).
I really like the look of the ESS board, which is in my price range.
I will also look around for suitable breakout boards so its nice and easy to wire up.

Hopefully the CNC hardware will be finished in a matter of weeks or so. I just need to sort out ordering the controller, hopefully the ESS and BOB.

Thanks again for your reply. It really helps.

Regards

Paul

4

General Mach Discussion / Mach 3 or 4 Controller

« on: September 20, 2019, 11:38:09 AM »

Hello,

I am building a new CNC machine and have purchased all the hardware.
I have 3 phase closed loop steppers and have also purchased a PlanetCNC controller but have now decided to go down the Mach route.

My Y axis has two ball screws and two steppers so I want to some how synchronize both or have separate main and slave outputs and also be able to drive each in turn automatically when homing. Which should also ensure my X axis is square.

The advice I am looking for is what is the best or most suitable controller for Mach4? As a newbie to this and starting out, I think I may as well go down the Mach 4 route over Mach3. I do not want to spend to much on the controller, maybe up to £200 at a push but around 130 - 150 would suit my budget better.

The CNC is a simple 3 axis machine with two drives for the Y axis.
Eventually I would like to also be able to control a VFD spindle and maybe a 4th axis (Rotation / Chuck).

I also like the idea of a controller that does as much motion control on-board as possible (FPGA, ARM etc) so as to offload as much as possible from the PC.

Any ideas or suggestions would be really helpful.

Thanks in advance

Paul