Hi,
the AXBB controller has just been released, I'm not sure that it has a Mach3 plugin yet.
Check with CNCDrive if it is your intention to use it with Mach.

The older UC100, UC300 and UC400 all do have a Mach3 plugin and so you could use either Mach OR UCCNC.

Craig

Hi,
I think I have decided for to use mach4 for the new build. Now I have a few questions...again...
1. Craig are you using mach4?
2. Can I use mach4 for my 4 axis machine? I mean is it stable with four axis?
3. If I invest in mach4 industrial, I will be happy. But, I read some topic about the hobby version having the probe functionality, and the industrial only having preparation for installing macros  from companies that sell probes. Do not know if this is real news.
4. If I pay for industrial, I need to get a good controller and BoB. What would you guys suggest?
5. What pc should I aim for. Motherboard? Memory? Video? Ssd? Windows 10? Processor?

Sorry for the tons of questions, I am really a noob, but I want to leaen. And for my work I really need four axis and surface mapping...

Thank you all in advance,
Peter

Hi,

1) Yes, have been using Mach4 for a little over 2-1/2 years.

2) Yes, Mach4 can handle six coordinated axes (plus Out-of-Band axes as well up to a total of 32 motors).

3) Both Industrial AND Hobby handle probing identically.

and the industrial only having preparation for installing macros  from companies that sell probes.

I've never heard of that.
The only feature that Industrial offers that Hobby does not
is Macro B programming. It has some application in industrial programs, things like conditional Gcode and stuff like
that. Have a look at Cbyrdtoppers (Mach4 board) description of how he used it for his grinding machine. If you have
been using Mach3 and it works for you then you wont need (or miss) macro B. The real advantage of Industrial is
SUPPORT. You ring NFS and you go to the top of the queue.
I am not aware of anything that obligates you to buy
Industrial but note that the Industrial licence applies to ONE machine only. Hobby on the other hand can be used
on up to five machines. It might be worthwhile explaining your situation to NFS. It may not be unreasonable to start
with Hobby and if it goes well for you then get Industrial, maybe NFS can do some sort of upgrade?

4) With either Hobby OR Industrial you need a good controller. Remember that the controller handles ALL the realtime
functions so no matter how good Mach is (or isn't) the controller determines how the machine will behave.
I personally prefer the Ethernet Smoothstepper by Warp9 TD. It is moderately priced ($190), not the cheapest but not
the dearest either. Just recently a number of new realtime features have been added (backlash comp, lathe threading,
and encoder driven PID spindle control). The long awaited THC feature is due to be released in a few days. That makes
the ESS the most up-to-date controller in the moderate price bracket.

Other worthy contenders are the 57CNC by PoKeys, the PMDX-424 by PMDX, the UC300 by CNCDrive.
One of the more expensive ($600) offerings is the Hicon by VitalSystems. It has always enjoyed an reputation of having
well developed realtime features. Until just recently it was the only controller to offer realtime THC for instance.
Another extremely high quality offering are the motion controllers offered by Galil. For four axes they start at about $2000.

The Galil, Hicon, PMDX-424 and probably the 57CNC don't require a BoB whereas the ESS and UC300 do. I would recommend
the modestly priced ($23) C11, one only for a simple machine but two (or more) adds much more IO. You will have to make
a few simple additional circuits to 'flesh the C11 out', or buy a more expensive BoB. CNCRoom does an MB2 especially for
the ESS, all three ports are developed to be used and connected to the outside world. It is about $200.

5) I use a dual core (1.8 GHz) Atom mini-ITX board, with NO graphics card. Its a really low powered board but it works really
well. Its slow if I load really big etching files (10M plus) but once it loads and draws the toolpath it goes great guns
thereafter. The real advantage of using an external controller is that just about any 'cheap as chips' PC will work. Check
this little sucker out:

https://www.dfrobot.com/product-1585.html

$209 with 4G/64G and Windows 10 Enterpise already loaded.....hard to beat that value and less than 4 inches square!
To accommodate Mach alone Windows 10 with 4G RAM and 64G hard drive would be ample. A graphics card is recommended
but I don't have one on my machine so I hardly rate it as essential. i3 or i5 is any amount for Mach.
If you want to load CAD/CAM on the same PC  then up the ante in the processor/memory/HDD/SSD/graphics to suit,
Mach doesn't require it but CAD/CAM do.

Craig

Hello guys! I am Peter and I am stonemason and I use CNC mill for 90 percent of my jobs. I have read a lot of topics on the forum but none of them points me directly to solution of a problem:

My granite slabs are polished as glass and they are uneven on the surface. When I have to engrave a 100 or more letters on them I have to measure every two letters and make a separate toolpath in aspire or artcam. When i have a slab 1000mm on 2000mm and it has difference lets say 2mm from one side to the other and my letters are careved 2mm deep, I get no letters on the lower side and get bold (like offset) letters on the higher side of the slab. I can always  try to make the slab even, but since they are polished I cannot calibrate them with a tool, because I have re-polish them after the lettering. The other way I tried is to make the slabs even by putting something under the lower part, but this also did not worked, because most of the slabs are cut and polished like and arc. So they have a "belly in the center. So I get a slab that is Z=0 in the center of XY, and Z=-2 in one corner, Z=+1 in the other, Z=+2 in the third and Z=-3 in the fourth corner.

I found that my only solution is a some kind of material flatness detection software and hardware like mach3 plugin plus a laser scanning or touch probe digitizing.
Can somebody tell me what to buy to solve this problem, that I have been struggling for a long time. Thank you all in advance.

G-CODE RIPPER (freeware)  + a very simpe z-axis probe
http://www.scorchworks.com/Gcoderipper/gcoderipper.html
Can already solve a problem like yours.
** G-CODE RIPPER Now with "Auto Probe" for cutting (+ engraving) on uneven surfaces **

Hi,
yes Gcode Ripper could be an excellent solution. The Autoprobe feature of Gcode Ripper is very similar to
Autoleveller. I even have some little input into it myself, two macros, m40 and m41, were written by me in Lua
for using Autoleveller with Mach4 and subsequently adapted to add Mach4 support to Gcode Ripper.

Craig

There is also a feasible mechanical solution to engraving on Granite slabs.
NO NEED FOR any PROBING & AUTOLEVELER SOFTWARE even.

The engraving spindle head is mounted on additional rods and linear bearings so the head will move up and down freely but will drop to lowest by its own weight by gravity. The engraving head has a smooth nose ring that that will glide on the surface of the granite and the engraving tool will only engrave the depth between the it and the nose ring - a consistent depth of engraving always.
Z axis motor do still move the head up and down but the actual depth of cut is NOT actually controlled by the z-axis motor.

(I learned this from Multicam CNC machine builder about 20years ago at their factory)

Not hard to implement on the z-axis of a typical CNC router. Just decouple the z: motor from the spindle mount and make it LIFT the spindle from the bottom only.
Then
modify (lock the springs) of an "auto pressure foot" to suit.

Auto pressure foot has bearings to glide

Ok I made this /the attached picture/ , based on Craig's drawing and from what I saw on the videos for Gcode ripper. I just made some mistakes and cannot mount it on the spindle head, but I will change the mount will be ready soon.
The flexible spindle mount or the spring nose cone are both very cool ideas, but I engrave the granite slabs on passe. For example if I need 5 mm deep engraving, I make 10 passes of 0.5mm. otherwise the pcd tool brakes.

"The flexible spindle mount or the spring nose cone are both very cool ideas, but I engrave the granite slabs on passe."

This is the theory:-
The nose ring will only determine the final depth say 5mm (ie. the last 1 or 2 passes) when the z: motor is by then be lowered a little more lower than 5mm below surface so that the ring would then determine the final depth.
Before the final 1 or 2 passes, the z: motor could still be engraving 0.5mm at a time for 8/9 times since the nose ring would NOT be touching any surface as yet.
Of course the feasibility would depend on how even/uneven or how level the slaps are loaded. Is a spirit level used?

If this method can be made to work, it may save the time needed to do probing.
Saving time can mean saving money and increasing profit.

Cutting granite makes stone dust. Will sliding a ring across the dirty surface make scratches in the polished surface?