Well i'll agree on that... I'm still running Mach 3 on an XP
machine for the very reasons you mention. Ops sys is stripped of
everything save the bare essentials to get the environment up and
running.? So I don't have any issues with the env adding/dropping
random interrupts. Mach 3 gets full attention of the sys all the
time. No other app grabbing background ops. I do though run
Vectrics VCarve Pro at the same time. But both apps only interact
if I try to edit the gcode while that same file is still loaded in
Mach3
I am old too and do not like to learn new stuff unless there is
likely to be a big payoff. my particulars might be different
from most. i make about 150 small parts in a session. the
program is starting and stopping as many times.
i think i have learned just about everything i could screw up
but then i find another way. no more short cuts for me.
that said, i think i know the difference between my fucking up
or the machine fucking up and the control program fucking up. i
devised all sorts of means of correcting what i now believe were
minor hiccups in mach3. i know that windows makes it very
difficult to write this sort of program. mach3 was written for
XP and although it still runs on win 10 i believe there may be
some instances where mach3 is just not fast enough smart enough
or whatever enough to work with all the crap win 10 is trying to
do. i have my machine pared down to the almost minimum that will
still allow windows to run. no internet no programs at all
running in the background and all unnecessary services disabled.
i will know better when i have made 1000 parts but so far after
75 i have had absolutely no position drift or random moves that
can break tools and damage the machine. running the same program
on the same machine with mach3 i was constantly on the estop
ready to catch some stray move or stall and had to constantly
make minor corrections for lost steps. at this point my axis are
very smooth and i use fairly slow acceleration and do not insist
on trying to run as fast as possible. making the 75 parts i had
absolutely no corrections to make no stray moves, never had to
estop once except when i did something really stoopid. with
mach3 i would have estopped and restarted mach3 several times in
75 parts and would have been constantly making corrections to
the x axis. no idea the x axis, when this is the easiest on a
three axis router. at this point i really don't care to figure
out whey mach3 behaves so badly compared to mach4, just glad i
switched, i have 3800 parts to make.
i almost have the confidence to leave the machine to do other
things in the shop. i am going to wire my spindle controller to
stop the gecko drives when it faults. that would have fixed the
stupid thing i did yesterday. i live in fire country and had to
evacuate twice last summer. it was a total bitch not being a
young strong guy. so now everything of values is on wheeled
carts. the router is mounted to a steel cart and i had not
decided where to mount the spindle controller so it was just
sitting there. then i realized that there was a place to improve
the wiring to the controller and the improvement allowed the
controller to be pulled by a wire and knocked off the stand.
that killed the spindle but the axis were still moving and i was
not fast enough with the estop. now the controller is solidly
bolted down and tomorrow will be the fault estopping.
i also bought a single relay remote control that i can hang as
a pendant around my neck for when i wander away from the running
machine. i know exactly what the noise should be for a part that
is being cut properly. hopefully i can act fast enough if i hear
something wrong but my guess is that there will be very few
times when this is necessary.
i have run repeated axis moves checking with the dial gauge and
jogging or using MDI or running simple programs with repeated
moves and return to home always end up in the same place. it is
only when i am running a sub over and over and over that i get
strange behavior from mach3. the random moves (which corrected
themselves) are a total mystery but happened fairly regularly
with mach3. my guess is a problem with the mach3 driver for ESS?
did not experience this with mach4 yet. My guess is that the
drift in mach3 is due to some rounding error or ??? when the sub
repeats over and over. I am also using offsets and again a guess
is that all this interaction together with some obscure bug in
mach3 and probably some not great gcode programming results in
unreliability. i have not had to make a single correction on the
x axis running mach4.
if that were not enough there are so many improvements in mach4
that i am just starting to discover them. i can easily do things
like MDI without screwing up as i repeatedly did with mach3. the
program is just more friendly. i have lost patience with work
arounds and faking things. i just want to get the work done.
On 4/2/2021 9:04 PM, Paul Tegler via
groups.io wrote:
Ditto!
I just spent the day downloading and reading all the Mach4
manual.
The first thoughts that come to mind is all through the late
80's and 90's, how many people use to update their computers
every 6-9 months and the learning curves with new motherboard
and CPU features and re-configuring the various new features
of new versions of Windows. More people spent more time
'playing with the machine' vs actually using the machine to do
stuff. Mach4 to me is this avenue.
I've been running Mach3 on my converted Smithy with my custom
CNC conversion and home designed controller,
?
and my (ridiculously over built) CNC router table,
(excuse the stupid math/speeds....was 2 a.m. not thinking
straight) both with PMX and ethernet. I've never had any
issues that were not the fault of the idiot at the keyboard.
....planning to stay with 3!? I guess that's a sign I'm
getting older (and lazy?)
ptegler
i don't know about a list but i can't think of anything
better than ESS together with a parallel port breakout board
like the PMDX
On 4/2/2021 7:11 PM, Joe
Macmurchie wrote:
?
Can
someone point me to a listing of current motion
controllers that work with Mach 4, please.
?
Sent from my Atari
2600
Regards,
-Joemac
?
--
Best regards, Spencer Chase
67550 Bell Springs Rd.
Garberville, CA 95542 Postal service only.
Laytonville, CA 95454 UPS only.
Spencer@...
(425) 791-0309
--
Paul Tegler
ptegler@...
--
Best regards, Spencer Chase
67550 Bell Springs Rd.
Garberville, CA 95542 Postal service only.
Laytonville, CA 95454 UPS only.
Spencer@...
(425) 791-0309
