. didn't know the ESS was not being supported. 

Thats the problem, you only find out AFTER you've bought it. They should put a notice up saying it's not supported any more.

Quite under-handed I feel.

i've gotten some response from Warp9.. hard for all these firms to supply lots of support at these prices and possible quantities. Have you seen some of the posts? Most of the people have no clue how anything works.. so they ask a lot of really, really truly awful questions. Takes a lot of time to answer those if you needed too, or were trying too. And $200 wouldn't get you much support from anywhere else... even $1100 wouldn't go very far. I have a bunch of industrial s/w, and I pay for support. I'm amazed how poor it is often. Hard to find good engineers who know s/w and h/w and troubleshooting procedures, and will work for what they are willing to (or can) pay. Same would go here. Flip side is that there is often better documentation. 

what did you find? 

I didn't had time to check it out, will do during the weekend and let you know.

Have a good one

i've gotten some response from Warp9.. hard for all these firms to supply lots of support at these prices and possible quantities. Have you seen some of the posts? Most of the people have no clue how anything works.. so they ask a lot of really, really truly awful questions. Takes a lot of time to answer those if you needed too, or were trying too. And $200 wouldn't get you much support from anywhere else... even $1100 wouldn't go very far. I have a bunch of industrial s/w, and I pay for support. I'm amazed how poor it is often. Hard to find good engineers who know s/w and h/w and troubleshooting procedures, and will work for what they are willing to (or can) pay. Same would go here. Flip side is that there is often better documentation. 

Pokeys manage it.

I am more concerned will the lack of transparency before purchase. If they aren't going to provide support then fine, but make sure people know before buying. I have an ESS for my Miller as previously stated and checked out the forum before buying a new one for the Lathe. I saw no statement that support was limited/ended because the main developer had gone. If I had I would have considered other options. Instead I wasted 2 months messing about. Then had to remove it and install a Pokeys. 3 months total for a week week job (including setting up the software etc)

the main developer probably isn't a problem.. many people change jobs, locations, etc. It would be normal for any product that possibly the originator was no longer involved. And it could be he reached the end of his limits and couldn't or didn't want to continue. He could have been a contractor, and once he got the product to some state he went on to something else.
As I said, support is really a tough nut.. perhaps he never expected that he'd need to spend endless hours, days, months, answering questions like can I use 220v to power the unit.. or what's the difference between an open collector, NPN, PNP output.. or input.. or whats an input or an output? they sell this board for less than $100... he certainly didn't make $100 on each unit... how much time can he spend when people are sending him code and asking why it doesn't work.. he wasn't expecting to teach a programming class. Same for the engineers at Mach4...

Quote from: Steve Stallings on August 09, 2024, 06:38:40 AM

What was the fix?

I removed the ESS+MB3 and installed a Pokeys57CNC, all working perfectly with the same hardware. First time, no messing around.

I had a couple of issues with the Pokeys57CNC, but that was just understanding their strange "Pins" configuration.

Polabs/pokeys have a ticket based support system though and are actively supporting their products, so the solutions were quick.

What port did you originally used on the MB3 board? Is it the one from CNC-technics?
I use Port 1 Pin 10, 11 and 12 for the A,B,Z Pulses. Its not configurable so it's PNP and should work fine with the Digital level coming out of a differential converter AM26LV33. I heard that preferable NPN should be used, I didn't checked it so far, as I used the configurable port2 as NPNs for my inductive limit switches on 24V. I probably give it a try tomorrow to increase the pulse with and also use an NPN port at least for the index pulse for synchronization with Threading.
Keep you posted.
Cheers
Frank 

Quote from: Rimmel on August 09, 2024, 06:39:51 AM

Quote from: Steve Stallings on August 09, 2024, 06:38:40 AM

What was the fix?

I removed the ESS+MB3 and installed a Pokeys57CNC, all working perfectly with the same hardware. First time, no messing around.

I had a couple of issues with the Pokeys57CNC, but that was just understanding their strange "Pins" configuration.

Polabs/pokeys have a ticket based support system though and are actively supporting their products, so the solutions were quick.

What port did you originally used on the MB3 board? Is it the one from CNC-technics?
I use Port 1 Pin 10, 11 and 12 for the A,B,Z Pulses. Its not configurable so it's PNP and should work fine with the Digital level coming out of a differential converter AM26LV33. I heard that preferable NPN should be used, I didn't checked it so far, as I used the configurable port2 as NPNs for my inductive limit switches on 24V. I probably give it a try tomorrow to increase the pulse with and also use an NPN port at least for the index pulse for synchronization with Threading.
Keep you posted.
Cheers
Frank 

Port 3. X310, X311, X312, X313 (pins 10, 11, 12, 13) Should be used (as per manual) as these are "Superfast" ports. These can be used (set) as PNP or NPN

Page 6 of the manual.

It's not mentioned in my manual for the BOB rev. 4.4, that any of the port got specific inputs capabilities. all are connected through a diode and a TLP293-4 Optocoupler. Some Pins are configurable as NPN and PNP depends on the Jumper, so Anode and Cathode (LED) of the TLP293 input needs to be connected either +VSS or Gnd, depends on the jumper settings on Port3. 10,11,12,13,15. Maybe you got a different BOB?

MB3 is from cncroom

https://cncroom.com/en/product/mb3/

OK that makes sense, I got it from CNC-Technics here:
https://shop.cnc-technics.de/public/6-Achs-Breakoutboard-Rev4.4-fuer-ESS-Smoothstepper/400224.1