Hi All,
Long time no post!
I don't see it explicitly stated, but can I run MachPro on more than one machine like we do with Mach 4 or is it $550/machine?
Is there/will there be support for an analog controller?

Mike

Hi,

Current licensing structure for MachPro will be 1 License per machine.

There is currently support and planned support for the following motion controllers:
Vital Systems: Integra , EC01
PoLabs: Pokeys57CNC, Pokeys57CNCpro4x
Warp9: ESS
Trio: Flex6x
Kingstar: Kingstar Motion

Hello Paul,
Well that is not the news I wanted to hear. I don't believe any of those will do analog motion control and I have 2 machines that require it.
As of right now, I have one supported controller and 6 or 7 unsupported controllers running a mix of Mach 3 and Mach 4.
I will have to think long and hard about upgrading to Mach-Pro since a $1K-$2K upgrade per machine would be beyond my hobby budget.
If I were to actually start a business, things might be different.

As always,
Thanks for the information.

On the note of Analog specifically, you can manage that with an EtherCAT setup or with the correct motion controller. You can do a EtherCAT connection to a Beckhoff that will control your Analog 0-10v analog signals from something like a EL4002 Or once TRIO is supported, you should be able to add a P378 Slice for Analog Outputs to the motion controller itself. What's nice about the latter option is that the TRIO is a modular solution and it has a real time PLC built in.

Hi Paul,
I am looking for analog motion, as in +-10v analog to the servo drives, not analog I/O for feedrate override and such. If that I not available, then I would have to start from scratch on 2 of my machines, which at this point is a non-starter. I do realize that +- 10 volts is old school, but there are still a lot of drives out there that work and use this interface.

Thanks again.

Currently, we don't support the old analog drives on MachPro. We are mostly trying to push into EtherCAT systems due to their reliability, safety, and functionality. At this time, the choices would be a Galil motion controller or a competitor like Centroid. At some point in the future, we may get Galil as a supported or certified motion controller, but there is no current ETA for that.

Current drives supported on MachPro when doing positional movements.

• EtherCAT
• Step and Direction - Differential - Open or closed loop
• Step and Direction - Single ended - Open or closed loop (Can be done, not recommended due to reliability)

Current drives supported on MachPro when doing velocity movements. (Like a VFD)

• EtherCAT
• Step and Direction - Differential - Open or closed loop
• Step and Direction - Single ended - Open or closed loop (Can be done, not recommended due to reliability)
• +-10v Analog
• Serial / Modbus
• PWM

What about the CSMIO devices? The CSMIO/A is analog (+/-10V) and uses an ethernet connection to interface the mach 4 pc.

Is there any chance of it being supported by mach pro?

Currently no. I have reached out to the company with little to no response.

Currently, we don't support the old analog drives on MachPro. We are mostly trying to push into EtherCAT systems due to their reliability, safety, and functionality. At this time, the choices would be a Galil motion controller or a competitor like Centroid. At some point in the future, we may get Galil as a supported or certified motion controller, but there is no current ETA for that.

Galil, Wooooo Hoooooooo!!!!!
Yes please.
Let me know if I can help with the testing.

This seems like the best thread for these questions, I hope I'm correct.  One way or another I am moving on from Mach4.  Two inexplicable machine crashes in one day have pushed me to look for alternatives.  I have a lot invested in LUA customizations that I would really like to be able to use. 

1. Have there been any updates on the progress for the linux based MachPro?  I can see that the expectation on the website is 2026.  I am just wondering about the confidence level of this. 

2. If I were to buy the current license, what will the policy be for moving to linux sometime in the future?

3. Lastly, I have requested a demo version of MachPro twice.  Once a couple of months ago and most recently early yesterday.  I have yet to receive any response from either request.  Has anyone else had such a challenge?  Maybe I'm being impatient with no response on my request from yesterday, but it is unusual in this day and age of software on-demand for this to be delayed.