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CSMIO/P-M
« on: July 14, 2020, 11:04:35 PM »
I'm wondering if anyone can help here ... 
I bought this controller a couple of years ago, and after a lot of stuffing around I finally got everything to work with Mach 4.  A few months back CS-Lab came out with a firmware upgrade that I proceeded to install.  Now I can no longer control the spindle speed from the GUI - but it does work if spindle speed is set in the gcode.  I can start & stop the spindle from the GUI, but it only runs at minimum.  I've approached the manufacturers but they are worse than useless!  (And bloody arrogant too!)

I have also started having issues with the Z-height touch sensing - it immediately disconnects with an error - probe not detected message.  Does not even try to move the z-axis.  I've checked the probe & it is working.

Any help would be appreciated - but I am seriously considering binning this piece of crap controller & going back to the Chineseum controller I had before.
Re: CSMIO/P-M
« Reply #1 on: July 15, 2020, 02:40:00 AM »
Hi,
CSLabs used to have one of the best reputations in the business for support but they have gone right off the boil.
Additionally their Mach4 plugin is buggy and they do not seem inclined to fix it.

It seems a shame to bin what is such a high quality controller, but if the manufacturer won't help you to get it to work then
you have no choice. Note that the Mach3 plugin is very much better due to long maturity. You could therefore sell it to a Mach3
user in good conscience and a Mach3 user would get an excellent controller. For Mach4 however CSLabs products are far from
the best despite good build quality.

At the current time I would recommend an Ethernet SmoothStepper (US made by Warp9TD for $180) as a step/direction controller
or if you require analogue servos (analogous to the CSMIO/A) then the Hicon Integra (US made by Vital Systems for $600 without servo
activations and $1200 with servo activations). There is NO credible Chinese manufacturer of Mach4 ready controllers.

Mach4 is, in my (not so humble) opinion light years ahead of Mach3 but you need to chose the right external motion controller.

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

Offline Graham Waterworth

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Re: CSMIO/P-M
« Reply #2 on: July 15, 2020, 09:56:55 AM »
I have had a very similar experience with them, my CSMIO-IP/A ran perfect with Mach3 so I purchased a new IP/A to run Mach4 and the thing drove me crazy.  nothing was stable, things did not work, probing I just dare not use.

When I contacted CSLabs the attitude stunk, its all my fault for some reason or another.

It went on eBay and the machine is now on a ESS and working great, luckily the drives could do 0-10v analogue or step and direction.

No more CSLabs for me.
Without engineers the world stops
Re: CSMIO/P-M
« Reply #3 on: July 15, 2020, 05:06:23 PM »
Yeah, that's why I bought this controller - it looked really good & they seemed to have a good reputation, but since I've had it I've had nothing but problems.  Support from these jokers has been shocking (and I'm being kind here!).  I really wish I had gone the ESS route - but it's a bit late now >:(

It seems though that the spindle speed control from the GUI must just be a setup issue, but despite scouring the internet I just can't seem to find an answer.  Not sure what's going on with the Auto Tool Zero function, but sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't - nowadays mostly it doesn't.  Hoping someone on here can guide me in the right direction.
Re: CSMIO/P-M
« Reply #4 on: October 27, 2020, 01:15:50 PM »
Hi,
In each case, we try to explain the cause of the issues and help find a solution, so we are surprised by the above opinions.
If the case is up-to-date, please contact us at support@cs-lab.eu.
We are continually working on the development of the Mach4 plugin to provide users with the best quality. Many users around the world are very pleased with it, however, it is impossible to avoid all problems in 100%, especially that the documentation for developers from ArtSoft is very sparse, and the Mach4 software itself is not free from errors.
Remember that in such cases, your cooperation is crucial. We have several test machines, but for testing, we always need your configuration profile, a short video or a detailed description of the problem, and information on what Mach4 release you use.

New versions of CSMIO/IP firmware are always tested with the latest available Mach4 versions. In the case of service requests, it is still worth recreating the user's conditions as accurately as possible.
When the problem is successfully reproduced, we diagnose whether the cause is a plugin or Mach4 issue and either prepare a fix or report it to ArtSoft.

Please contact us if you have any further questions or concerns.

CS-LAB Team
support@cs-lab.eu
Re: CSMIO/P-M
« Reply #5 on: October 27, 2020, 03:33:22 PM »
Well, you say this on a public forum so you look good, but the reality is that on all the occasions that I have contacted you, the response has been been pathetic.  Your techie has shown absolutely no interest in solving the problem - or even actually even looking at the problem.  More often than not, my queries have simply been ignored - I get no response at all.

As a case in point - one of the issues I had turned out to be a simple configuration error.  Unfortunately the Mach4 documentation leaves a lot to be desired, and this issue was not mentioned anywhere.  I eventually found (on one of the forums) a user who had solved this issue - and when I tried it on my machine, it worked!  CS-Labs did nothing to even try & help fix this.

The bottom line is that I would never buy another CS-Labs product again, I will never recommend their products to anyone - and when I do replace this controller I will not have anything to do with this company again.
Re: CSMIO/P-M
« Reply #6 on: October 28, 2020, 01:15:00 PM »
If the cause of the problems was an incorrect configuration, we are even more surprised by your opinion, because having a user profile, we can quickly recreate the situation and find the issue.
So that we have a fair opportunity to respond to these allegations, we ask you to provide here or at office@cs-lab.eu information from what email address and when you contacted us in this matter?
We'd like to track your reporting history in our system and, see what went wrong here.

CS-LAB Team
support@cs-lab.eu
Re: CSMIO/P-M
« Reply #7 on: October 28, 2020, 03:48:40 PM »
I said that ONE of the issues turned out to be configuration.   

I think it's fairly simple to see what went wrong - firstly, the documentation that comes with the controller is, in my opinion, limited.  The original documentation mostly described setting it up under Mach3.  I think I later found some stuff that dealt more with Mach4, but even that was fairly inadequate.  The second factor is the attitude of the "support" tech (I believe his name was Wojtec - is that you?) who I found to be about as arrogant, unhelpful and dismissive as it's possible to be.  In fact, he was just downright rude, so much so that it made me to never want to deal with your company again.  I had the same issues with him when I originally converted the machine to your controller.

I did eventually get the machine sorted, but it took me several months and countless hours of trolling through forums getting advice & direction from other users.  Since I work from home and do use this machine to generate a part of my income, to say this was frustrating and an inconvenience is the understatement of the year!  At this point - as I say - the machine is working well enough as to be functional, so I really can't be bothered to go back and forth in an attempt to find out "what went wrong".  I've wasted enough of my time trying to get this thing working - first when I originally purchased it, and then after you guys updated the firmware.  If you genuinely want to see the correspondence I had with your company, it should be pretty easy to find (I doubt you've sold a controller to anyone else in New Zealand), but I'm obviously not going to publish my email address here.

Thanks but no thanks.
Re: CSMIO/P-M
« Reply #8 on: October 29, 2020, 09:08:59 AM »
Yes, we do want to see it. We are not able to track it only by the country, Mail address you used will be ok.

CS-Lab Team
support@cs-lab.eu
Re: CSMIO/P-M
« Reply #9 on: October 29, 2020, 02:38:55 PM »
Let me have your name & email address & I will correspond with you privately