Hello all. I've been building a diy cnc router for a few months now. It hasn't been without complication but that is part of the fun. I built this as a way to learn over the next few years as I get closer to retirement for a possible supplemental income, if I can get good with it. Let me run through some specs to give you an idea of the hardware.
Table and gantry are built of 3" square tubing and 1/4" plate
Dimensions are 72" x 52" oversized for my 48" square milling area
This was intentional to have my probe out of the work area and perhaps introduce a tool changer if the opportunity arises.
Hgr 20 x 1500mm linear rails on x and y (a as y slave) axes as well as sfu 1605 ballscrews
Nema 23 bipolar 425oz steppers on all axes
Dm542t drivers
2 x 36v power supplies
200mm travel z axis
2.2kw water cooled spindle on a huanyang vfd
2 limit switch per axis
3 homing (norm open prox) switches, not yet installed
Bob is nvcmv2.1 6 axis controller
Now before the comments begin I purchased the Bob prior to realizing it was highly considered garbage and had no support. At 52.00us it had the specs I thought were needed for my needs and expansion. I have tried everything I have been able to research to get this thing to have an effect on communicating with mach3 (demo by the way). I have copied settings and watched hours of setup videos. The only thing that works is manual run on the spindle, even it doesn't show up in mach3 interface.
My goal here is to use the knowledge of this forum to direct me to a proper controller that will replace the current one and work with the items I have in place, whether that be mach 3 or 4. I would prefer an ethernet port for communication and the ability to use my usb handwheel. Pics below.