The Mach 4 plugin is still in it's development stages.  Jeff, Kenny, and me have it running, but that is about it.  We are working the issues out a little at a time, but it is not to release into the wild yet.  If I could spend a week or two on it, it would be done.  But I'm working too much on Mach to give it any attention at this point. 

It will work with the Ethernet Optimas and the Ethernet Econos.  They just can't use Contour mode, which is much better than Linear mode. 

We don't know what the price will be at this point.    I don't even know a ball park yet.

Steve

Ok. Seems like il stick with m3 for the moment then.
Question re contour mode, in what way is it better than linear mode?
Any chance of a quick explanation ?

Most of my machines are still running the old version 4 smarterm plugin. My programs are not huge and it's worked well
Il try the newer 4.6 with the next one.
M3 is probably easier for me as Ive learnt a lot about writing macros and how it all works since I converted the first big one !

Linear interpolation (the original way we did movement with the Galil) can be a bit of a problem.  Because the Galil profiler tries to do what it does, profile a move!  But we have already profiled the move in Mach.  So we must disable the Galil profiler by giving it insane acceleration values.  In other words, we just want the Galil to do what we say from Mach.  But there are a lot of tools like smoothing and vector time constant that may need to be tweaked to get the best operation, depending on the physics of the machine. 

The newer Contour mode basically does not try to profile the move at all.  It is 100% in Mach's control.  It is pure position over time (PT).  The older controllers had contour mode, but the queue was only 1 slot deep.  This made it impossible to use "over the wire".  Starting with the Accelera line of controllers, Galil increase the contour queue to 512 slots just like the linear interpolation queue.  With contour mode, we can get resolutions as low as .5 ms time slices where we could only get 4ms time slices with linear interpolation. 

Also, the Galil interface is a terminal.  So it takes ASCII commands on a command line type of thing.  The controllers have to take the ASCII command and interpret it before it processes the command.  On the older controllers, this could take quite a bit of time in the scheme of things.  A quarter of a millisecond!  That would equal 4 commands in 1 millisecond.  But...  you have to get the data record in that stream too.  So the real limit with some fudge factor was a 4ms time slice.  The newer controllers are far faster (4 nanoseconds per command) allowing for faster data rates and thus smaller time slices.

That is it in a nut shell. 

That was a good short explanation! Lol
I have 8  Ethernet  Eco 21series controls and 4 optima 2200 series on the spares shelf!
Oh well.
To be fair. My machine has been superb at its original job of point to point cabinet work- and also something it was never made to do originally- small and fine carving work. Only possible due to the mach3 plugin you did.
Maybe il have another look at 4 next year. See how it's grown up .
Regards
Benny. uk

Hi guys, thanks for the plugin! But where to download the latest version for Mach3? Somebody send it to me at costademaria @ gmail.com please 

Hi I am a little confused. I have a 2240 with Ethernet, the manual says it has contour mode. Will it work with the Mach 4 plugin when its released? Or should I just go with Mach 3 & the existing plugin, If so how well would it work?

I'm setting up a Bridgeport mill with a Galil 4080 connected to 30A20ac Advance Motion Control. I will use -10/+10 vdc control between the 4080 and the 30a20ac. The 30a20ac has inputs to inhibit direction that can be used to prevent going in the wrong direction when backing off a limit. Should I hook them up, or will the software take care of this? The drive motor has a CFW-08 Weg drive, I can control it with -10/+10 vdc also, or order a serial rs485 card. What option would work best with my setup? I'm leaning toward the -10/+10vdc to the 4080 because it has extra axis and I will be putting an encoder on the spindle at some point. (After Mach 4 gets rigid tapping) How difficult will it be to use the i/o on the 4080? I have the option to use i/o on pokeys 56E that my PoNET kbd48CNC keyboard is connected to, if the Galil plug-in doesn't support extended i/o. Could I get the Galil plug-in to try out, who would I speak with?

Hi I am a little confused. I have a 2240 with Ethernet, the manual says it has contour mode. Will it work with the Mach 4 plugin when its released? Or should I just go with Mach 3 & the existing plugin, If so how well would it work?

Yes, it does indeed have contour mode.  However, it does not have a contour buffer large enough to run contour mode over the Ethernet.  It's only one slot deep!  This, in effect, makes it impossible to use Contour mode on these controllers.

Steve

I'm setting up a Bridgeport mill with a Galil 4080 connected to 30A20ac Advance Motion Control. I will use -10/+10 vdc control between the 4080 and the 30a20ac. The 30a20ac has inputs to inhibit direction that can be used to prevent going in the wrong direction when backing off a limit. Should I hook them up, or will the software take care of this? The drive motor has a CFW-08 Weg drive, I can control it with -10/+10 vdc also, or order a serial rs485 card. What option would work best with my setup? I'm leaning toward the -10/+10vdc to the 4080 because it has extra axis and I will be putting an encoder on the spindle at some point. (After Mach 4 gets rigid tapping) How difficult will it be to use the i/o on the 4080? I have the option to use i/o on pokeys 56E that my PoNET kbd48CNC keyboard is connected to, if the Galil plug-in doesn't support extended i/o. Could I get the Galil plug-in to try out, who would I speak with?

If you use the Galil limit inputs, the Galil will take care of it.  Otherwise, I would hook the drive signals up.  I use both on my machine.  Never hurts to be safe.

I would use +-10v.

IO, both general and extended, are easily used through the plugin.

The plugin for Mach 3 is available on the plugins download section of the website.  The M4 plugin has not been released yet. 

Steve

I have been using Mach3 free with the G code 200 limit on lines waiting for the Mach4 Galil plugin. I cannot wait any longer before buying the unlimited Mach3 or Mach4 but I am confused by what appears to be differing statements about Galil 21x3 compatibility with Mach4 plugin.

quote
"The DMC-21x3 are like the DMC-18x2 controllers.  They might not work with the Galil plug-in because of the way they handle Data Records.  Big question mark here.
EDIT:  The DMC-21x3 controller will work fine as long as they don't have the 31x3 distributed mode firmware loaded.  If you have a 31x3, simply install the latest and greatest 21x3 firmware and you are good to go.  Also these controllers, while labeled "Econo", will accept binary commands."

This looks like the edit says that I would be OK but I cannot see if that is referring to the Mach3 or 4 plugin. So please can I have definitive answers to the following.

1. Will the mach4 Galil plugin work with the 21x3 using ethernet?
2. If so, will it give the same or more functionality that Mach3 does?