Messages

6871

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 V3390 and HiCON

« on: July 12, 2017, 06:27:51 PM »

Hi Mauri,
i note from the Vital Systems website that the HICON board starts out at $600 but goes up as you add features.

Have you added any to your controller? If so what features and why did you need them?

Craig

6872

FAQs / Re: Should (Can) I buy Mach 3

« on: July 10, 2017, 07:44:54 PM »

Hi,
kool, glad to help. A good external controller is a REAL step in the right direction. I have used parallel ports
and they work but are quirky and sometimes just a PITA!
Aside from anything else an external controller doesn't care whether its XP,7,8,10 32 or 64 bit.

Craig

6873

FAQs / Re: Should (Can) I buy Mach 3

« on: July 09, 2017, 04:22:03 AM »

Hi,
should've made it plain the UC100 or PMDX-411 are USB devices, they get their power from the PC when you plug into a USB port. Inside the device
is either a DSP or FPGA chip which takes Mach machine code output from USB and produces highly accurate pulse streams for steppers or servos which
exit the device on a DB25 connector, aka a parallel port.

They are WAY WAY to clever to be called a 'USB to Parallel Converter', they are genuine external motion controllers, but may be thought of as
a converter. As such you could plug it in to the parallel port on the control box you got with your router.

The Gecko 540 I recommended combines a breakout board and multi stepper driver in one. You probably don't really need it but Gecko have a superb
reputation for reliability and they back them up. Most Chinese controllers use a common and cheap Toshiba IC for stepper drivers and they blow up all
the time.

There you have it... the cheapest way to get your machine to go is about $100 for either of the motion controllers, another $300 for a 540 if you want
better drivers plus of course a licence for Mach. There you have a choice, Mach3 is well established and has lots of features and tricks built in for $175.
All development work has ceased on Mach3, it will still be around for years yet but it is or will be overtaken by Mach4. Mach4 is all new, its modular,
designed and engineered in modern fashion. It is still developing but for mills and routers it ready to go. Mach4 is $200. Given that is all new you CANT
upgrade from Mach3...you have to buy new. If you want the latest and greatest go straight to Mach4. Both the UC100 and PMDX-411 have Mach4
plugins available.

You can also of course get a PC with a parallel port. I bought a mini-ITX board base on a dual core Atom CPU a couple of years ago, it had a parallel port
built in and I added another with a PCI card and used Mach3 with two ports for a couple of years. It can be done and cheaply.
http://www.mini-itx.com/store/

I have more recently changed to Mach4 and an external motion controller, an ESS by Warp9 but on the same little miniITX board.

Craig

6874

FAQs / Re: Should (Can) I buy Mach 3

« on: July 09, 2017, 02:31:53 AM »

Hi,
you've spent $600 on hardware but are not prepared to follow through and make all that gear work?

Firstly Mach is a Windows program that requires a MOTION CONTROLLER to operate connected machinery. Traditionally
Mach used a parallel port as its motion controller. In more recent times external motion controllers have become available
variously connected including USB. If you can get the Chinese motion controller to work good luck to you. You may have noted
that hundreds if not thousands of posts on this forum are about Chinese made controllers that people can't get to work.

If you want to get your router to work using quality electronics that are well supported by their manufacturers consider
the UC100 by CNCdrive or PMDX-411 by PMDX and couple that to a Gecko 540 and never look back.

http://www.cncdrive.com/
https://www.pmdx.com/
http://www.geckodrive.com/

Craig

6875

FAQs / Re: X axis not working

« on: July 08, 2017, 06:36:08 PM »

Hi,
sounds like the controller is faulty. Go back to the supplier and try to get a new one.

If that doesn't work buy a Geko 540....

Craig

6876

FAQs / Re: Spindle not working

« on: July 08, 2017, 06:29:09 PM »

Hi All,
this is probably off topic, I apologise if I'm upsetting anyone.

Why do so many Chinese suppliers do things like this?

I can certainly understand that they wish to produce products as cheap as possible to capture as many sales as possible. The pirate copy of Mach3
they supply is often corrupt. That will bring their customers onto the Mach forum and the company will be exposed as a fraud. Surely if you are going
to supply a pirate copy of any software you could at least make sure it works and the associated documentation was correct/usable so if someone
purchased it they would probably not realise that it is a pirate copy.

A lot of the Chinese made routers are excepting the junk/ pirated controller and software not bad value. I mean that if you had to buy and assemble
all the parts required you would be hard pushed to match them. If they stuck to advertising the value for money that their router offers they would
still do well and not occasion any 'blowback' because they tried to palm off rubbish electronics/ software/ instructions.

The fact that so many of us are prepared to buy from such suppliers is the only reason for their existence. That we do encourages otherwise honest
Chinese suppliers to go down the pirate/ junk route just to remain competitive.

Craig

6877

FAQs / Re: Should (Can) I buy Mach 3

« on: July 08, 2017, 05:11:33 PM »

Hi,
the solution is ditch the Chinese electronics and buy decent stuff from a company that supports their products.
Buy a licence for either Mach3 or Mach4 direct from Artsoft.

Craig

6878

General Mach Discussion / Re: MACH3 & Wine Ubuntu

« on: July 07, 2017, 09:47:47 PM »

Hi,
my understanding is that Mach is a Windows program and no-one I've ever heard of has managed to run udner Wine.

I did get involved with a discussion a while back on the Mach4 board and smurph made the following comment:

We have an old build that runs on Linux.  In fact, we demoed Mach 4 at IMTS 6 years ago on a Linux machine.  So yeah, it will run on other platforms.  But Linux is not where the majority of our customers are at the moment.  So we have been concentrating on the Windows platform.  I hope to have a Linux build by the end of the year though.  Once we get that going, we'll keep it in sync with the Windows build from that point on.  However, the Linux build will be more for OEMs and such and run on a dedicated distribution of Linux.  We simply can't get into the world of supporting all of the flavors of Linux.  We will probably choose a CentOS distribution.  We may make it available to end users on a strictly "you are on your own" kind of thing with ZERO support from our ticketing system or phone support (meaning only forum based support from other users).

smurph is a Mach4 guru, if he says something then it IS SO. That Mach4 has been run under Linux came as a surprise. That there may be a Linux version at some future date
even more so.

For all that its interesting, if you want to run Mach 3 or 4 use Windows, if you really hate Microsoft and refuse to use Windows then run LinuxCNC under Linux and be done with it!

Craig

6879

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Windows 10 IoT

« on: July 07, 2017, 06:57:30 PM »

Hi,
finish my post...hit the post button accidentally.

My other licenced machine is my i7 Windows 8 laptop.

I can and have run my mill with both platforms and within the exception of file handling speed of the MUCH MUCH more powerful laptop
the difference at the machine is NILL. That's right NILL, if my Gcode calls for a rectangular drill pattern either platform produces the part in
exactly the same manner, accuracy and speed.

Unless someone can tell me an advantage measured in machine accuracy, speed or smoothness conferred by an OS then I'm happy to stick with 32 bit
Windows 7.

Craig

6880

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Windows 10 IoT

« on: July 07, 2017, 06:47:30 PM »

Hi,
first I've heard of Windows 10 IoT...looks intriguing but I have to ask 'what relevance does it have to a platform running Mach4?'

As I'm sure you've read that a PC running Mach or in fact any machine control software should do just that and having it connected to either
the internet or even your own network is asking for trouble. With a machine controller trouble="TROUBLE>>!#@$%MOTHERF&&*%$THAT>>>HURTS!!@#@#"

I have licenced Mach to run on two platforms, my normal machine controller, is a dual core Atom mini-ITX board running 32 bit Windows7