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Author Topic: Mach3 vs NC-studio  (Read 44648 times)

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Mach3 vs NC-studio
« on: November 07, 2011, 12:32:52 AM »
seems like a lot of routers out of China come with NC-studio which uses a PCI card to control the machines via a 15 pin cable.

I just picked up a used 1200x1200 machine with the aforementioned NC-studio and got it running and did a test cut with the last tool path I ran on a smaller mach3 controlled 500x300 machine and it was quite disappointing - lots of dwell marks and odd lines in the surface - admittedly this was a 1/72 scale model plane part which isn't what the machine was designed for but I figured it should be able to do a bit better.

So I wired a Mach compatible breakout board to  some ribbon cable hooked up to a 15 pin D connector (so I didn't need to modify anything in the machine), set up and tuned the motors (7000mm/min rapids which is pretty good and maybe a bit fast) and re-ran the part. It's basically identical to the part made on my smaller machine.

Here's a comparison pic -



Mach/smoothstepper 500x300 machine on the left, Mach on the 1200x1200 machine in the middle, NC-studio on the 1200x1200 machine on the right.

The results speak for themselves and I'll be permanently wiring in the mach breakout board...

Offline Tweakie.CNC

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Re: Mach3 vs NC-studio
« Reply #1 on: November 07, 2011, 02:58:47 AM »
So how exactly have you wired the breakout board to the 15 pin connector ??

Tweakie.
PEACE
Re: Mach3 vs NC-studio
« Reply #2 on: November 07, 2011, 04:17:38 AM »
The router has a simple breakout board with a 15 pin connector on it. The NC-studio PCI card just has 3 sets of step/dir signals, 3 outputs to control the VFD speed, and 3 limit switch inputs so I just traced the wiring and have the mach breakout board between the parallel port and a 15-pin connector like this:



I didn't want to start disconnecting wires in the machine until I was sure this would work. Wasn't 100% sure I'd be able to start the spindle the way the VFD is configured.

Now that I know where all the wires go I can replace the 15-pin BOB in the machine with the parallel port BOB.

Offline Tweakie.CNC

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Re: Mach3 vs NC-studio
« Reply #3 on: November 07, 2011, 04:44:10 AM »
Thanks, I think I understand what you have done now.

Tweakie.
PEACE
Re: Mach3 vs NC-studio
« Reply #4 on: May 10, 2013, 07:03:38 PM »
Jallit, I'm trying to do exactly what you have done. Changing an NCstudio machine to Mach3.
I'm trying to figure out how you configured mach3 to control the spindle with the 3 outputs to VFD.
Could somebody point me in the right direction please?
Re: Mach3 vs NC-studio
« Reply #5 on: July 09, 2013, 10:07:42 AM »
Hi, I hope you are still around jallitt. I am hoping you could give me some more details on this process too.

My NCStudio based machine sounds a lot like yours, and the PCI card that came with it has broken. I'd like to use Mach 3 instead but am having a hard time figuring out what adapter/break out board I need to get!

Any info would be greatly appreciated!

Offline dude1

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Re: Mach3 vs NC-studio
« Reply #6 on: July 09, 2013, 05:18:59 PM »
i changed from nc stuido to mach 3 i used a MB-02 Breakoutboard easy to hock up had no problems with it for over a year now
Re: Mach3 vs NC-studio
« Reply #7 on: July 09, 2013, 07:11:14 PM »
Great! Thanks for the reply. Do you have any more information? Any wiring diagrams and stuff? I don't really know what I'm doing with it to be honest, I just know you can control the stepper motors via a breakout board from the parallel port.

I'm assuming you need to wire things up in a specific way?

Offline dude1

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Re: Mach3 vs NC-studio
« Reply #8 on: July 10, 2013, 05:37:14 PM »
http://www.homanndesigns.com/store/, look here this is where i got bob from, the site has instructions for all stuff he sells relay good to deal with.
Re: Mach3 vs NC-studio
« Reply #9 on: July 12, 2013, 05:55:17 PM »
That's great. Thanks for the link!