To be clear not all Chinese companies copy and not all are dishonest.? And there are some very smart engineers there.? But one has to watch out and one of the reasons we now have this awful subscription model for CAD/CAM/CNC programs is because of examples like this:

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A few years ago a friend and I bought a couple of these TB6560 4 axis stepper driver boards.? (still sitting in a box)

Came with a CD with the user manual and schematics.?

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An one folder on the CD with MACH3 including a MACH3 license file.? The boards cost us less than a MACH3 license.? We didn’t even know that this was included.? Both of us had our own licensed copy of MACH3.? Alas my friend has since passed but I still use my licensed ?MACH3 on my JGRO CNC router which has a brand name USB SmoothStepper as an interface to stepper drivers from US companies.?

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For my Mill I switched LinuxCNC with the MESA 7i92H.? That too could be copied but hasn’t been.? Perhaps because LinuxCNC is intimidating for new users.? And who hasn’t visited a Linux forum and seen posting that are downright abusive when someone asks a simple question.

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John

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Product copying issues:

I have at least three cases of my products that were copied:

50 years ago, I designed a police scanner radio that got popular.

A US company copied it and “improved” the high frequency RF section to make the PCB layout “cleaner”.

They did not understand that the strange layout was intentional.

They never made it to the market.

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30 years ago, I designed a money changer: ?A dollar bill input, and 3 quarters, 2 dimes and a nickel were dispensed.

The coin dispenser section sheetmetal had an unused accidental hole.

A US company copied it correctly, including the accidental hole, and marketed it.

A few years later I was inspecting a company in China and their engineering department was busy copying the copy, also including the hole.

What a coincidence!? There are zillions of companies in China, and I happened to evaluate that one.

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25 years ago I designed an RF transmitter with a digital memory to transmit recorded information on the FM broadcast band.

Again, a US company “improved and cleaned up” the RF section.? They never could get it to work properly.

Bertho

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BTW, I think you do have to realize that your CNC 3040 may not end up being as good a deal as you thought.? The Chinese are famous for copying (bugs and all) existing products without the background engineering in place to provide support.? So they have a black box from somewhere that came from somewhere that was copied from somewhere.

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Here’s an example of this sort of issue and it’s caused a lot of frustration for the original designer who put it all out as open source including 2D drawings.? Even the CAD files were available for an extra charge.

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That is an unlicensed copy of this project and the 2D and CAD drawings are no longer available because of the copying.

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What people buying it may not realize is the Chinese copy is an open loop version without encoders and instead has a couple of electric brakes on it to keep it from slipping without power connected.? That means only the AR2 software will run and upgrading it to AR3 or AR4 is a lot of work.? About as much as just buying the original kit from Chris Annin.? And it’s hard to know how good the Chinese mechanicals are anyway.

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So here we have a fantastic project with a designer who was trying to bring low cost robotic arms to a place where the average person can play (more than the Radio Shack Armatron)? and it gets poorly copied and the cost to bring it to latest standards costs and the labour now has to be done anyway.

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I think in the case of your mill your best option is to look at one of the North American Suppliers who create ‘black boxes’ compatible with MACH3/4 and swallow the money paid to the Chinese for the fake as a learned lesson.? At least you have the mechanicals.

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John

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