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Author Topic: Should I get mach4 or 3?  (Read 2622 times)

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Should I get mach4 or 3?
« on: August 23, 2016, 11:11:04 AM »
My diy cnc is done-ish, and I've almost gotten the accuracy I want out of the demo version of mach3, but low and behold, mach4 exists, and eventually I would assume mach3 would fall out of favor.

Is there any reason I wouldn't want mach4 instead of mach3?  My machining will consist of
-3 axis milling (no spindle control or anything yet, but eventually!)
-occasional 4th axis milling
-probe (I downloaded the probeit wizard which works /great/ does this exist in mach4?

Can I import my mach3 configuration into mach4?
Re: Should I get mach4 or 3?
« Reply #1 on: August 23, 2016, 01:32:54 PM »
Probe it! Does not work in mach4 and when I last spoke with the creator he had no plans for mach4.

How are you planning on getting signals from pc to stepper drives?

Motion controller or parallel port... if motion controller... which?
Rob

Albert Einstein ― “If you can't explain it to a six year old, you don't understand it yourself.”
Re: Should I get mach4 or 3?
« Reply #2 on: August 23, 2016, 01:59:59 PM »
Servo drives not stepper

parallel port -> homanndrives breakout -> gecko 320x
Re: Should I get mach4 or 3?
« Reply #3 on: August 23, 2016, 02:42:08 PM »
.Servo or stepper I don't think there is any difference to Mach 3/4... it's a pulsetrane with a direction signal.

Think you'll feel limited in the end with a parallel port (and mach3 as its not been developed for years, and there is no intention to update it either). Mach4 is probably fine for a simple mill at present, but I'm not sure how many people have converted fully from mach3 to mach4 in a production (receiving payment for goods produced) capacity at present... its sort of in a long term development phase (more for the other bits of cnc at present than mill though (lathe, plasma, etc). That being said, and I do have a licence for it, it is very fast and smoother in motion than m3, and will be great in the end.

Rob
Rob

Albert Einstein ― “If you can't explain it to a six year old, you don't understand it yourself.”
Re: Should I get mach4 or 3?
« Reply #4 on: August 23, 2016, 02:44:46 PM »
Mach3 does have the advantage of mountains of information and macros and wizards, and the ease of a visual basic variant for writing your own macros.  It is and has been used a lot for production.

Rob

Albert Einstein ― “If you can't explain it to a six year old, you don't understand it yourself.”
Re: Should I get mach4 or 3?
« Reply #5 on: September 07, 2016, 07:14:33 PM »
I used Mach3 and found it had many problems with 4-axis milling. Went to Mach4 and everything is peachy!