Messages

2621

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach Driver and Port Address

« on: April 15, 2019, 10:15:35 PM »

Hi,

I really need this machine, I have a lot invested in it and dont want to get rid of it just cause it wont play with 10.

You asked the question....I gave you an answer. If you have an alternative I sure the hundreds or thousands of people
who've faced the same question will be all ears.

Craig

2622

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach Driver and Port Address

« on: April 15, 2019, 09:55:13 PM »

Hi,
yes there is a cable adapter that goes in between.

If you want to spend less try a UC100 or a 57CNCdb25 for about $120. Don't be tricked into buying a Chinese knock-off
UC100, buy direct from CNCDrive or their nominated distributor.

You want cheaper than that buy Chinese junk and good luck to you.

If you dont want to spend anything go back to Widows 7 32 bit or XP.

Craig

2623

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mill or Turn?

« on: April 15, 2019, 08:10:24 PM »

Hi,
Mach4Hobby has CSS.

I suspect though that it suffers from the same fault that Mach3 does.

Mach3, according to the thread Hood linked to, makes a pretty fair approximation to constant surface speed
but cannot do Feed per Rev accurately. As was pointed out for Feed per Rev to be accurate requires that the spindle
be synchronized with the X axis and that is incompatible with buffered control system.

Mach4, despite it differences, is still a buffered control system and therefore probably not capable of accurate Feed per Rev
for exactly the same reason as Mach3. I have not tested it an Mach4 nor does my setup allow for it to be tested. I would
caution that if you require accurate Feed per Rev then Mach4 warrants investigation.....

Accurate Feed per Rev can be obtained by a C axis as opposed to a free running spindle. This is certainly capable of being
done in Mach4 and I can't imagine any reason that it could not be done in Mach3 as well.

Craig

2624

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach Driver and Port Address

« on: April 15, 2019, 07:54:48 PM »

Hi,
but you don't have to get rid of it, if you install an ESS (Ethernet SmoothStepper) between your Windows10 PC
and your existing parallel input control box it will work better than it ever has done before.

Craig

2625

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 input signals to use USB Motion card controller for stepper motors

« on: April 15, 2019, 07:44:39 PM »

Hi reuelt,
are you aware that a number of people that have tried the XHC ***-M4 boards have all failed to get them to work?

They even give a custom macro for AUTO TOOL ZERO since SOME programmers in USA use "GETVAR(1001)" that can cause problems with their motion controller.

Are you aware that GETVAR(****) is a Visual Basic compliant statement?. Mach4 has absolutely nothing to do with Visual Basic.
The AutoZero macros supplied by NFS for Mach4 are all open source Lua macros.

The principle problem with XHC is that it wont (at the time of writing) support any of the editable GUI's like wx4.set or wx6.set
and is therefore restricted to the non-editable wxLua.set. Half of Mach4's strength is as a result of an editable GUI and XHC can't
support it.

The next problem is that all the inputs and outputs are screwed up. An output on Output#4 produces a signal on pin3
and not pin4??? Worse....its intermittent.

This situation has remained static for well over a year. It would appear that XHC either don't care or are incapable of correcting
their faulty firmware.

Craig

2626

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach Driver and Port Address

« on: April 15, 2019, 07:15:45 PM »

Hi,
the parallel port shows up in the device list and if you had a parallel printer I'm sure it would work.
Machs parallel port is much more than just the physical port itself. There is no workaround that allows
Mach's parallel port driver to work on ANY 64 bit OS or ANY Windows 8 or later OS.

You can use Mach on Winodws10, including 64 bit and even with laptops (the parallel port never played well on laptops)
with an external motion controller like an Ethernet SmoothStepper (approx. $180) or a UC300 (approx. $150). Note that
both of these boards need a breakout board (or boards) as well, cheap breakout boards can be had for about $20.

There are cheaper Chinese external controllers.....but be warned they often don't work at all and don't support a lot
of Machs functionality. If you do any reading on the forum you find lots of posts from people who can't get their
cheap-s*********t Chinese controller to work. Avoid like the plague.

Craig

2627

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 input signals to use USB Motion card controller for stepper motors

« on: April 15, 2019, 06:59:18 PM »

Hi,

https://www.machsupport.com/forum/index.php?topic=36023.0

Craig

2628

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 input signals to use USB Motion card controller for stepper motors

« on: April 15, 2019, 06:37:25 PM »

Hi,
in order to use Mach4 with that controller you will need a Mach4 plugin made by XHC for their board.
To my knowledge they don't have one.

There is a thread on this board somewhere that a lot of people have tried XHC boards and failed.

I think you are more likely to have success with their Mach3 plugin.

Craig

2629

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach Driver and Port Address

« on: April 15, 2019, 06:25:56 PM »

Hi,
Mach's parallel port is more than just the parallel port (DB25) but a software driver that lives in the kernel of the PC.
Windows 10 prevents the driver from being installed.....you cannot use Machs parallel port on Windows 10.

Craig

2630

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach3 and Mach4 together and compatibility

« on: April 15, 2019, 05:44:02 PM »

Hi,
I use an external motion controller, an Ethernet SmoothStepper (approx. $180USD) by Warp9TD. It has both a Mach3
and a Mach4 plugin.

There is to my knowledge no Chinese manufacturer that produces a Mach4 capable controller (that works anyway....
whatever they claim) and therefore suspect that your machine is likely to be able to run Mach3 only.

I use Mach4 and personally believe that its light years ahead of Mach3.

The funny thing is that Mach3 and Mach4 do almost exactly the same thing. Until just recently there was nothing
Mach4 could do that Mach3 could not and vice versa. Mach4 does certain things much better and very much more robustly.
The real strength of Mach4 is its ability to be customized. For example:
https://www.machsupport.com/forum/index.php?topic=40008.0
This is a thread where a guy wanted something just a little different than Mach4 as standard. It too me a couple of hours
to make two new DRO's, a new toggle button and some code to populate tool length compensated Max and Min Extents
DRO's in work coordinates instead of the more usual machine coordinates. This is possible with Mach3 but very much
harder.

If you have a simple machine and don't require anything special then Mach3 will be fine, and you are familiar with it and
is $25 cheaper.

If you want to customize your machine or want to use some of the new functionality that Mach4 offers
then go that way, it will cost an extra $25 for the software and somewhere in the region of $120 to $250 for an economical
external motion controller, or $600 plus for a real top quality unit. As Byranna pointed out there is a parallel port option
for Mach4, called Darwin for which a $25 license fee applies. Darwin is not fully featured with things like lathe threading,
THC and backlash comp but otherwise works pretty well. It still requires a 32 bit OS, Windows7 or earlier just like Mach3's
parallel port. Darwin allows a cheap way to try out Mach4 although Mach4 was intended to be paired with an external
motion controller.

Craig