Messages

1531

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Upgrade from Mach3 to Mach 4 with Huanyang HY series VFD

« on: April 20, 2020, 11:03:46 PM »

Hi,
the first instance you will need to establish whether you BoB has an analogue ouput.

What is your Bob?

Craig

1532

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Upgrade from Mach3 to Mach 4 with Huanyang HY series VFD

« on: April 20, 2020, 10:05:44 PM »

Hi,
of course I ommitted to ask why that you wish to control it with Modbus, is not PWM good enough?
Certainly the ESS is PWM capable and depending on your BoB you should have analogue 0-10VDC
for a VFD, why not yours?

Craig

1533

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Upgrade from Mach3 to Mach 4 with Huanyang HY series VFD

« on: April 20, 2020, 10:03:18 PM »

Hi,
my understanding is that a specialist plugin is required for Modbus to work with the HY series VFDs by virtue
of the Huanyang not complying with the Modbus standard.

There is a plugin for the HY in Mach3 but I do not for sure know whether there is a similar Mach4 plugin.

Apparently Huanyang must have gotten a lot of bad publicity over their non-compliance with their HY series
so they have released a new model that does called the GT series.

Another cost effective brand of good quality and support is Delta, Taiwanese manufactured in China. They have
quite a range.

Craig.

1534

Mach4 General Discussion / Mach4 feature vs Mach3

« on: April 20, 2020, 07:20:31 PM »

Hi,
as most of you know I post here and other places frequently about CNC generally and Mach4 in particular.

I find myself trying to describe why Mach4 is so much better and more sophisticated than Mach3. The problem is
that when I go to write about it I'm overwhelmed with ideas and features I find it hard to encapsulate all of it in
readable fashion.

What I am hoping to do is start this thread and have users post what they particularly like (or don't) and thereby
develop a list that may be presented to a person tyring to decide whether to go with Mach3 or step up to Mach4.

I'm going to start with some features that I really like about Mach4 that exceed the similar facility in Mach3:

1) Zero Brane Editor. I like the file tree that you don't get is Mach3. I like the breakpoint assignment features,
step wise run features, its more sophisticated and flexible than Mach3 and approaches the level of flexiblity
that you might expect in an IDE like MSStudio. I like also the stack dump and other diagnostic messages that you get
but don't get with Mach3.

2) The PLC. In Mach3 you have but one macro pump, any and all macros that need to run continuously must all be incorperated
into the one macro pump macro. The PLC is an analogougus place in which to concerntrate such code but can be done in
individual functions. In Mach3 any fault in one part of the macropump code screwed the rest of it, not so with the PLC where
individulal functions can be tested without upsetting the others. The PLC rate is determined by setting and is an order of magnitude
faster than Mach3 by default and can be programmed to run faster again.

3) I like the slave axis arrangement with Mach4. In Mach3 if you wanted a slave axis you had to use the A axis and re-imagine it
as a linear axis slaved to another. With Mach4 you do not have to re-imagine any axis just to get a slave, any axis can have up
to four slave motors. Further these slave motors can be programmatically linked and unlinked via API calls for sophisticated
synchronization schemes.

4) The Mach3 Modbus feature is a nightmarish confusing beast which I now refuse to involve myself in. The Mach4 Modbus
plugin is a dream by comparison. I especially like that Modbus variables have a register, thus you can use the data from
a macro, PLC or PMC whereas in Mach3 the Modbus data was available only as a Brain, the conceptual equivalent to PMC.
Likewise youcan use a macro or PLC or PMC to set the register and that data will propogate out to the Modbus device....so
superior to Mach3.

Ok, these are the features that I like and come to mind on the fly. I hope others will post what they like and we might start
to build a bullet list of features, maybe  with liknks to individual posts to flesh out the bullet points.

Craig

1535

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach 4 on Windows XP version 4.2.0.4162

« on: April 19, 2020, 04:55:50 AM »

Hi,
ask NFS.

Its old and the ftp site has the lateset builds only, no doubt the earlier build will be archived somwehere,
but why bother just get an up to date OS and get on with it.

Craig

1536

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach 4 on Windows XP version 4.2.0.4162

« on: April 18, 2020, 08:17:20 PM »

Hi,
firstly this post belongs on the Mach4 General Discussion board, no doubt tweakie will shift it.

My understanding is that 4162 is the last build to be XP compatible.
If you want to use a later build, by all means try but don't be suprised if it fails. The obvious solution is to use
Windows 7 or better still Windows 10.

Craig

1537

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 License transfer

« on: April 16, 2020, 12:53:56 AM »

Hi,

There are a number of these small single board PCs out there, and if they run Windows10 (ie all of them) then they'll run
Mach4 no sweat.

That is imprecise, most of the single board PCs out there are ARM Cortex based and run Linux or Android OS's.
Clearly Mach4, being a Windows app, will not run on such boards but will run on any board that CAN run Windows,
ie X86 based boards.

Craig

1538

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 License transfer

« on: April 15, 2020, 08:03:26 PM »

Hi,

this may appeal, 8G RAM and 32G eMMC but no Windows activation  for $267:

https://shop.udoo.org/udoo-x86-ii-ultra.html

Craig

1539

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 License transfer

« on: April 15, 2020, 07:47:48 PM »

Hi,
Mach4 is not a power hungry application, just about any PC will run it fine.

I bought a dual core Atom based mini-ITX PC some years ago (still running Mach3/parallel port at that time)
with 32bit Windows 7. It uses onboard graphics and as the saying goes...'couldn't pull the skin of a rice pudding'.

I've been running that same PC with an Ethernet SmoothStepper and Mach4 for five years, all without problem.
The only time I notice that the (guttless) little Atom struggles is if I load a largish program, say 5-10Mb, it will take
a minute or so to load and draw the toolpath but thereafter its fine.

My advice is that unless you regularly load large 3-D files say, don't waste your money on a powerful PC, you don't
need it, a cheap and cheerful little PC like my Atom will run just as accurately, smoothly and every thing else.

I haven't tried one of these, but they appeal to me, 4G RAM, 64G eMMC, Windows10 Ent with runtime activation for $209:

https://www.dfrobot.com/product-1585.html

There are a number of these small single board PCs out there, and if they run Windows10 (ie all of them) then they'll run
Mach4 no sweat.

Craig

1540

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Spindle Index Setup With Hall Sensor??

« on: April 15, 2020, 12:38:59 PM »

Hi,

Are you part of Artsoft or Newfangled. I see you posting in many topics I've researched.

No, I am not, just an amateur.

Craig