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Author Topic: Is Mach4 really Hobby Material?  (Read 23855 times)

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Is Mach4 really Hobby Material?
« on: January 17, 2018, 01:28:52 AM »
Hi All,
I've been using Mach4Hobby for about a year and I luv it. I especially like the flexibility that comes with the modular structure and how Lua has been integrated.
I would admit that at the beginning I had my doubts but the more I learn the better I like it.

I have noticed however that many who try Mach4 are less that happy...comments like "I'll wait for NFS to make Mach4 like Mach3 used to be...' are common.
It strikes me that if half (this is my wild guess) of people who try Mach4 who don't carry on with it then is Mach4 really a hobby product?

I am happy to make the effort to program Mach4 to my liking but maybe you are not. I'm hoping that this post might generate a few comments and maybe a poll
is in order to establish what people like and dislike about Mach4.

Craig
'I enjoy sex at 73.....I live at 71 so its not too far to walk.'

Offline Tweakie.CNC

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Re: Is Mach4 really Hobby Material?
« Reply #1 on: January 17, 2018, 01:50:21 AM »
Quote
It strikes me that if half (this is my wild guess) of people who try Mach4 who don't carry on with it then is Mach4 really a hobby product?

There have been quite a few long established Mach3 users (and notable forum contributors) who have tried Mach4, not carried on with it, and then moved to using an entirely different software.

Tweakie.
PEACE
Re: Is Mach4 really Hobby Material?
« Reply #2 on: January 17, 2018, 07:28:51 AM »

I am happy to make the effort to program Mach4 to my liking but maybe you are not.
Craig
IMHO, this should be an option (very nice, BTW), NOT a necessity !
It should work as intended ... in its most basic form.

Russ
Re: Is Mach4 really Hobby Material?
« Reply #3 on: January 17, 2018, 08:09:30 AM »
For us, we have a lot of special equipment.  When we used/use Mach3, we wrote a lot of macros to carry out programs, with that, we had several very custom screen sets. Mach4 took some time to learn (and still learning), but it is a far better product and it has been well worth the time we've taken to learn it.  Mach4 would work in its most basic form for us in some applications, but when you can customize something to do pretty much anything you want, it's hard not to make modifications to suit your needs.  
I Can see why others, especially hobbyist, don't want to use Mach4 if they don't intend to take a little time to learn the program, but IMHO if someone were to take just a little bit of time to figure out the software and LUA they would be very happy they did.  I do think there are some things that NFS could make standard to make it easier to set up but I also understand that it is currently working and they have better things to adjust and improve before making it more plug and play.
Mach3 isn't even an option to us anymore, Mach4 is just so much better.
Chad Byrd

Offline RICH

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Re: Is Mach4 really Hobby Material?
« Reply #4 on: January 17, 2018, 08:57:05 AM »
It should work as intended ... in its most basic form.
And building on what Russ said,

And that must also include the external motion controller.
One needs a horse and a wagon to join the wagon train to venture out West.

RICH
Re: Is Mach4 really Hobby Material?
« Reply #5 on: January 17, 2018, 09:08:08 AM »
Please don't hesitate to reach out to our support team using the 'Support' tab at machsupport.com with any specific issues or concerns. Mach4 (unlike Mach3) is still being improved and issues are being addressed as they arise. I am working on improving and creating new training material for users who are brand new to CNC or just new to Mach4. I will be the first to admit that it is different than Mach3 and there is a learning curve, but my team is available to help bridge that gap.

Thank you,
Bryanna
Newfangled Solutions Helpdesk: http://support.machsupport.com
YouTube Support Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/MachSupportOfficial
Re: Is Mach4 really Hobby Material?
« Reply #6 on: January 17, 2018, 10:56:56 AM »
The switch from Mach3 lathe to mach4 lathe has been painful.  Learning another programming language, errors in the screen sets, lack of documentation as to Mach4's model (lua running screen, lua running core, lua running scripts all in separate 'threads' that don't talk to each other nicely), lack of documentation on the detail of the wizards...

Having said that I wouldn't go back to Mach3 lathe.  Standardizing on Fanuc style Gcode and macros means there is a lot of information available.  The screen editor, once you learn where to find properties and actions and events allows you to customize to your hearts content.  Hardly anyone uses Mach4 lathe yet so it is much more difficult to get forum support but thanks to guys like Craig who are willing to go above and beyond their own interests to help teach and explain has allowed me to have made great progress in understanding the new paradigm.

It is unfortunate that we have lost some of the knowledgeable users like Franco who has moved on to Centroid.  He was a valuable contributor to Mach3 lathe users but when I looked at Centroid I found that you could not customize their screens in any fashion, they didn't have an API available either so that was not an option for me.  It is heartening to see Rich post here with his vast knowledge on CNC lathes.  I understand that when you have invested hundreds of hours making things work the way you want the thought of moving to something new means not only redoing everything but learning how to do those same things in a new way.  Hope he sticks around.

If, as a hobbyist, all you want to do is run Gcode files then Mach4 does that.  The gripe on hardware integration is valid but getting better, but, unless your willing to buy ALL of the hardware, including the machine, as what happens when you be from an OEM, you will always have to configure according to what you have put together.  Of course you could always switch over to the Linux based CNC, but then you would have to learn another language, operating system, screen paradigm, hardware setup and configuration and rely solely on user support ;^)

MTCW

RT
Re: Is Mach4 really Hobby Material?
« Reply #7 on: January 17, 2018, 12:49:22 PM »
We are using Mach4 lathe in a production shop.  It is working far better than Mach3.  We are about finished with another Mach4 lathe retrofit.  One thing that is great about Mach4 is the Modbus, a year ago I knew nothing about modbus, it was relatively easy to learn and now we have 3 going on 4 machines using a PLC to handle most of our I/O communicating with Mach4. 
To be honest, I did look into Centroid, but the fact that we can customize screens and scripts is a huge advantage to us.  We have retrofitted OD Grinders that have completely customized screens, we are using Macro Programming to make our grinding more efficient with In Process Gauging.  We couldn't do that with Mach3 and we wouldn't have the flexibility with other software like Centroid to accomplish our end goal, which is basically a conversational grinding operation.
Chad Byrd

Offline thosj

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Re: Is Mach4 really Hobby Material?
« Reply #8 on: January 17, 2018, 12:57:23 PM »
Bryanna,

Out of curiosity, what's the preferred method of getting help, here or email support? If it's email support, no one learns anything other than the emailer. If it's here, there wouldn't be ANY zero reply posts or threads that just die with no resolution. Where did these people go who got no reply to what seems a legit post? Did they email support and get an answer that no one else knows about, or did they walk away?

Tom
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Tom
Re: Is Mach4 really Hobby Material?
« Reply #9 on: January 17, 2018, 01:13:47 PM »
"Out of curiosity, what's the preferred method of getting help, here or email support?"

That would depend on who you want to get an answer from. There are plenty of users on this forum who are knowledgeable and willing to help and the information shared becomes public knowledge. I think this forum is a wonderful way for users to collaborate and share ideas and I don't mean to take anything away from it by mentioning the support option available at machsupport.com. 

However, many issues require a decent exchange of information (profile, g code files, macros, screenshots, etc) in order to solve and this isn't always the best platform for that kind of conversation.  The support team responds to every single ticket that we receive, but we cannot monitor every thread on the forum and respond to each post. I'd like to be able to, but it just isn't feasible.

My general recommendation would be for users who are not getting the answers they need here to reach out to our team. Some users do bring their answers back to the forum so they can be shared and passed along, but that's up to them.

Newfangled Solutions Helpdesk: http://support.machsupport.com
YouTube Support Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/MachSupportOfficial