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I'm just starting to reconfigure my ATC CNC router to Mach4 and wondering if anyone else has experience with it here.

So far I've got good motion and calibration on the servos with much less pain in the setup process than Mach3.

I'm using an Ethernet Smooth Stepper. Homing switches are working.

Next challenges are getting the ATC solenoid output working and the Spindle VFD working.

Even if there's no one here to pester with questions I'd love to just hear that someone is using Mach4 successfully.

I was looking at it, but right now there aren't any drivers for my jog control, so have held off on it.

I much prefer the screens it uses. The ones in Mach3 are designed by someone that is totally color blind and had no idea on what to include, so they just added everything.

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Allen R. McFarlen
Barron River Guitars & Ukuleles
Facebook
Cairns, Australia

Yeah agreed on the layout being so much cleaner and clearer than Mach3.

Getting the solenoid output working was way easier than it was in Mach3. Inputs and outputs in general seem way easier.

I've never tried the Lua programming language but it looks very similar to other common languages. I assume I'll have to use it to program the ATC like I had to use VB Script in Mach3.

I have not used Mach 4 so I probably shouldn't be talking about it but, a good friend has been fooling around with it for a while now in offline mode. He's a moderator on CNC zone and really knows his stuff. According to him, Mach 4 doesn't even replicate the functionality of Mach 3 at this point. There's still no CV control adjustment parameters which is of critical importance if you're doing stuff like we're doing.

In the last year, I've abandoned Mach 3 and haven't looked back. I'm currently using UCCNC with a UC100 which definitely has a much better CV trajectory planner compared to Mach 3 with full control of following error etc. It is young software though and I've got everything I need to switch my second machine over to Kflop which is my long term plan. I'm a "never say never" kind of guy but after all the problems I've had with Mach 3, It's highly unlikely I'll ever consider Mach 4.

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http://www.birkonium.com CNC Products for Luthiers
http://banduramaker.blogspot.com

I downloaded and gave it a quick look but the pain involved in re-doing everything on my systems didn't make it worthwhile. With the slow speed that they put out updates i think i'm more likely to switch over to linuxcnc (or whatever they call it now) like Tormach did.

The increased price of Mach4 and (especially) the way they changed the activation make me much less likely to upgrade.


Andy - have you tried linuxCNC & the cheap mesa FPGA cards?

Hi Dan,

I've not yet tried LinuxCNC and have already bought all the hardware for Kflop/Kmotion CNC. I've heard a lot of good things about the Kflop and am really hoping that it's my last controller!

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http://www.birkonium.com CNC Products for Luthiers
http://banduramaker.blogspot.com

Andy, I recall some time ago that you recommended a particular screen set for Mach3 use, but I can't find a reference to it doing several searches. Can you let me know what that was?

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Allen R. McFarlen
Barron River Guitars & Ukuleles
Facebook
Cairns, Australia

Here you go: http://www.thecncwoodworker.com/2010.html

Very good stuff!

_________________
http://www.birkonium.com CNC Products for Luthiers
http://banduramaker.blogspot.com

Cheers

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Allen R. McFarlen
Barron River Guitars & Ukuleles
Facebook
Cairns, Australia