Hi Dubble,
kool! I didn't know that, is it a recent development? Frankly any manufacturer who doesn't bother to bring out a Mach4 plugin
for their controller is going to go out of business.

I'm sure all your existing customers are going to be delighted to have the option of trying Mach4.

Craig

OK I think Warp9 is interesting. UC300ETH or UC400ETH are they driving the spindle as well?
Why to have 2 or 3 parallel port?

Hi,
I'm not familiar with the UC*** products but sure as eggs you can control a spindle with them, wouldn't be much of
a controller otherwise.

The Warp9 ESS I am familiar with. It has '3 parallel ports' as output. It means that all the input/output pins have been grouped
together to behave like a parallel ports so familiar to us who've used Mach3. It also means that all those breakout boards that we used
when we used a parallel port can be used as buffers/amplifiers for the ESS board. There is no real reason that all the pins, 40 or so, couldn't
just be arranged in a line but Warp9 decided to make it easier for those who had used Machs parallel ports for years.

The PoKeys boards are more like that, ie all the IO pins in a line rather than grouped together...works just the same tho. The ESS and Warp9
show their long standing commitment and affiliation with Mach...

Craig

The PoKeys57E board is interesting with the price. But I should make some cables modifications, and figure out how it work and reflect how to connect all pin...  
Is it compatible with my driver spindle (step/dir, pwm, on/off), with my old PC? 

I think the documentation/specification are not very clear... ie: "3-axis 25 kHz or 8-axis 125 kHz Pulse engine"   Warp9: "Up to 4 MHz" with 6 motors and spindle.

Frankly any manufacturer who doesn't bother to bring out a Mach4 plugin
for their controller is going to go out of business.

CNC Drive does have their own very good control software, which is in direct competition with Mach3/Mach4. They wouldn't be going out of business without a Mach4 plugin, but it opens up a different market for them.

The Warp9 ESS I am familiar with. It has '3 parallel ports' as output. It means that all the input/output pins have been grouped
together to behave like a parallel ports so familiar to us who've used Mach3. It also means that all those breakout boards that we used
when we used a parallel port can be used as buffers/amplifiers for the ESS board. There is no real reason that all the pins, 40 or so, couldn't
just be arranged in a line but Warp9 decided to make it easier for those who had used Machs parallel ports for years.

There are breakout boards made specifically for the ESS, which bring out all of the pins for all 3 ports. An excellent one is the MB2 from CNC Room.
http://www.cncroom.com/break-out-board/smooth-stepper
It has lots of great features, including analog spindle control.
And, you can also use it with the UC300ETH from CNC Drive. Here's a pic of my UC300ETH mounted to an MB2 breakout board.

Hi,
reading spec sheets can be confusing and is easy to misinterpret things. All of the boards I've mentioned have strengths and
weaknesses but also have thousands of satisfied customers. If any of their products didn't work we would know already.
Even a board with a particular weakness is still likely to be entirely adequate for most purposes.

The potential pulse rate is an example.

If you recall Mach3s native kernel speed is 25kHz, ie 25000 pulses per second. A two phase stepper with 8 microsteps per fullstep,
ie 1600 steps per revolution will spin at 15.625 revs per second or 937.5 rpm when driven by 25000 pulses per second, probably
adequate for our purposes. The same stepper operated with 64 microsteps per fullstep will spin at 117 rpm. The only way to make it
go any faster is to supply more pulses per second or reduce the resolution.

Commonly available servos have 10,000 count per rev encoders. To spin a servo at its max speed, 5000 rpm say, without resorting to
electronic gearing requires a pulse stream of 833kHz! An ordinary parallel port is WAY,WAY too slow, in fact most of the controllers you're
looking at will struggle to keep up.

The question you need to ask is 'do I want/need medium-high resolution servos/encoders/stepper drives?'. If you do the you're going to be
looking at pretty high spec equipment. Most hobby level equipment doesn't require that level of resolution/speed and/or a suitable compromise
can be reached and yet still deliver great results.

Craig

Craig,

We have the Mach4 plugin for the UC100 about 3-4months now and we have ethernet controllers about 1.5 years or so.

Hi,
thinking a little more about the decisions/choices you might make.....My previous post suggests that unless you have a pressing need
for speed or resolution just about any of the boards will work, I mean they're all faster than Mach3 PP.

What may be worth considering is analogue IO. Most boards will either on their own or in co-operation with the BOB produce an analogue
voltage from a PWM signal, just the thing for speed control of a VFD for instance. I note that the PoKeys 57E has an A to D built in and so
can produce a digital signal from an external voltage and transmit the digital value back to the PC over TCP/IP. Is that clever or what!
PoKeys boards have their origins in data collection/transmission and it comes naturally to them. Most of the other boards, at least in the cheap
end of the market, can't match it.

I have migrated to Mach4 and I will retain my ESS as my active motion controller but am planning to add a 57E as an IO board, but best of
both worlds and enuf IO to shake a stick at!

Craig