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Anybody still using Mach3?

SparWeb

SparWeb

Active Member
I bought a CNC router!
It's old!

No it's not that bad, but it's a DIY project that the guy has picked at for almost 20 years. Still works, and tonight I have cut wood by jogging the cutter, just trying it out. Learning as I go.
The CNC software is installed on a geriatric Windows XP computer. Eventually the nostalgia will wear off, and I will want to upgrade to a newer machine and Mach4. For now it works so I'll be happy for a long time using it as-is.

I'm new to Mach3 and CNC in general, but in a previous life I worked with engineers programming and operating CNC machining centers. When I sent them a drawing I liked being involved with getting it right and asked a lot of questions. Let's see if I remember any of what they told me.

Are there any other Mach3 users out there, or has everyone moved over to Mach4?

20230915_195521 - Copy.jpg
 
I have an islanded SBC running Mach3 under Win7 and it works fairly well. My hunch is if I ever connected this thing to the internet, MS would upgrade it and subsequently break it in a heartbeat, I'm letting sleeping dogs lie.

At the time I setup this machine, the general sense I got was that Mach4 was more buggy than Mach3, I'm not sure if that was actually true, would love to hear from anyone that has transitioned from 3 to 4.
 
I ran Mach3 on my diy router for years, just recently switched to UCCNC.
Only reason I switched is I got some closed loop steppers that:

a) could run faster and Mach 3 was hanging up when I increased the kernel frequency.
b) have an alarm pin on the stepper drive that was giving some false alarms (this was likely my own fault for no shielding on cables)

Anyways, the computer that ran this was getting flakey I tried to upgrade to a slightly less ancient computer and found out the Mach 3 parallel port driver only works on 32 bit systems, not 64.
I bought Mach 3 in 2007, figured it was due to upgrade.

Debating if I chose right. Linuxcnc is getting a lot of traction these days and Mesa has a ton of control board options. I have a retrofit in my future for a CNC mill, hopefully UCCNC is up to it.
I have not heard a lot of good about Mach 4, but have no direct experience with it.
 
I ran Mach 3 on a 3 different machines. Two of them are now switched over to Centroid Acorns. I will never go back to Mach 3.

I could never get Mach 3 to be reliable. If you want more details on the problems I had I can provide them. If you decide to stick with Mach 3 based on my experience I would stick with the old computer.
 
My CNC router is still running MACH3 on WIN-XP through a USB SmoothStepper plugged into a PMDX-125 Break Out Board. It's not connected to the internet. I have a ShuttleExpress as the method of moving around and even starting/stopping the router motor. Standard micro-stepper drivers for stepper motors and lead screws. The SmoothStepper is more than fast enough for creating step rates way beyond what the motor can handle. And I wrote some VBASIC code so I could touch off for Z zero onto a touch pad. No issues or problems with it at all.

OTOH, I have a MESA 7i92H connected to a PMDX-126 Break Out Board. That system was initially dual boot for WIN-XP/MACH3 or LinuxCNC. Eventually I continued on with LinuxCNC and can now no longer go back.

I think MACH3 is easier to start with for standard configurations but only with MACH3 and honestly not the stock parallel port. Instead I'd move to the Ethernet SmoothStepper for it in which case you can then move to WIN-7 with it.

No experience with MACH4.

I believe if you are doing something unusual LinuxCNC is likely the best solution but I don't think it's for the faint of heart. And I even have it running on a Raspberry Pi4 to the 7i92H. There are some amazing people supporting LinuxCNC. There are also a few of the standard "A-holes" who I'd love to have banned from the internet forever.

Since I have the Pi4 with a second MESA 7i92H there's no reason I couldn't trash the WIN-XP and MACH3 system. But the bad part of the CNC router isn't the control system. It's the router itself. Until that's reconstructed there's no point in changing the software.

So my suggestion is that as long as your current MACH3 system works stay with it until you are comfortable with Computer Aided Manufacturing (CAM) and the CAD to make the G-Code used by the CAM. Once you are proficient with that the control system is like the power on/off on your band saw.

Switch on, cut, switch off.

And changing to a different switch isn't a big deal. (or shouldn't be).
 
Thanks for the tips and your stories about upgrades from Mach3 to other s/w controllers.
I had picked up that the computer, software, and controller's interfaces all needed to dance nicely together - your comments have put specifics to that impression.
So as I expected, I'll stick with this old WinXP box and Mach3 for a while. At least until I find my feet.

I haven't heard about some of these other CAM driver programs before (UCCNC and Centroid) so I'll do a bit of homework.
I previously noticed mention of the PMDX boards but not the MESA 7i92H. I'll go learn about what they are, so that I have some idea what an upgrade path looks like. Who knows - what if those are obsolete, too, whenever I get around to upgrading!

And I won't need a copy of Fusion 360 for a while...

If I can get a wireless LAN to work in the old XP box, I can move files around without walking a USB stick back and forth to the shop.
Might also try a remote desktop interface so that I can control and monitor things from the house.
 
Unless you are using an external stepping generator like the ethernet smoothstepper I wouldn't suggest remote desktop while doing cnc.

The usb smooth stepper isn't really recommended anymore for the same sorts of reasons. Slow response from windows screws up cnc motion.

Units like centroid etc are really more like stand alone cnc controllers. All the work is done by the internal processor.

Kind of like using a 3D printer with a Raspberry Pi running the octopi interface. The Pi is the intermediate interface between the printer controller and the network. The web page it gives you shows progress. Temperature etc. But printer processor is still doing the motion.
 
If anyone has a link to a breakdown/comparison of Mesa boards and their features please share.

I've seen several mesa products used by various people on forums/instagram just curious if there is a chart that explains when to use a certain series from them.

Thanks
-Dave
 
DmechDesign said:
If anyone has a link to a breakdown/comparison of Mesa boards and their features please share.

I've seen several mesa products used by various people on forums/instagram just curious if there is a chart that explains when to use a certain series from them.

Thanks
-Dave
Click to expand...
The MESA boards have a long history with EMACs now known as LinuxCNC. It started with plug in cards into the motherboard and expansion cards that served as the interface to the hardware.

For example, one of the things that LinuxCNC can do that all the other cannot do is close the loop between a DC motor and the encoder. Say you buy a used mill with both AC servos and encoders but the controller for those is toast. The motor driver takes 0-10V input and the encoder outputs not quadrature but a different format say sin/cos. What to do?

Well with the MESA boards you can create the 0-10V and read the encoder information and inside LinuxCNC itself the closed loop motor control is done for you. Even if you have stepper motors you can add encoders and feed the encoder information back to the MESA board which is fed back to LinuxCNC and lost steps or a slipping pulley due to a loose set screw is a thing of the past.

To break down a CNC system the Centroid site has a nice diagram.

Acorn CNC controller, Step and Direction 4 axis CNC Control board with ethernet communication.DIY CNC kit

Acorn Do-it-Yourself CNC control board for Mills,Lathes,Routers,and other Machine tools. Mach3 replacement CNC controls for new machine tools as well as Retrofits for older NC machinery
www.centroidcnc.com

All CNC systems essentially look something like that. I believe the acornCNC on the centroid is actually a Beaglebone Black sitting on a cape that expands the I/O out to terminal strips. But it doesn't matter whether you use a PC with a parallel port, a PC with USB or Ethernet to a module that then interfaces to I/O the basics are the same and are called Breakout Boards or BoB's for short.

In my case I wanted to first run my mill from the parallel port with dual boot LinuxCNC and MACH3 on WIN-XP. So I went for an external BoB which had some extra safety features and since I already had a similar version on the MACH system that was configured to connect to the USB smooth stepper or two parallel ports.

PMDX.COM - Products for CNC and motion control applications

PMDX - products for CNC and motion control applications
www.pmdx.com www.pmdx.com

And that's why I went for the MESA 7i92H instead of the Ethernet Smooth Stepper since I decided to go Linux instead of WIN-XP. Better future.

7I92H picture

store.mesanet.com store.mesanet.com
 
I have a question regarding ease of use Mach3 vs. Linux CNC or the Acorn software.

With zero experience I found Mach3 to be very intuitive to setup and use. How do the others compare?
 
What you spend on Acorn will be saved in the agro of dealing with LinuxCNC. With LinuxCNC you first have to decide which GUI, then what underlying version, then try one of the 'simple installs' that in fact turn out to be anything but. And there will be endless changes required to add tool change, etc. Last, as John has mentioned, you avoid some of more interesting attitudes on their forum, the best being "well we provide the source code so you can always change or fix it yourself" :)
 
gerritv said:
What you spend on Acorn will be saved in the agro of dealing with LinuxCNC. With LinuxCNC you first have to decide which GUI, then what underlying version, then try one of the 'simple installs' that in fact turn out to be anything but. And there will be endless changes required to add tool change, etc. Last, as John has mentioned, you avoid some of more interesting attitudes on their forum, the best being "well we provide the source code so you can always change or fix it yourself" :)
Click to expand...
Dead on. With the variety of user interfaces including touch screens etc. there is no doubt it takes more work to get going. I've found though that for the most part the 'experts' including those who are responsible for updating the actual code are very helpful.

Where LinuxCNC excels is for that slightly strange machine or old CNC machine that used to use paper tape for example. Or have encoders on the motors that aren't standard. Not everyone wants to replace 4 motors for XYZ&A.

And we've had discussions here about the spindle motors. I went with an AC servo that has an encoder instead of 3 phase VFD. That isn't a problem with MACH3 for example it can run with PWM or Step/Dir and even PID. I don't know if the integrated boxes can do that.

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For LinuxCNC although there is a menu driven setup utility that let's you set each motor etc.
OTOH, it doesn't allow Step/Dir for the spindle; only PWM.
And like all Linux applications the OS is living in the dark ages (70's) where a command line interface is your friend. WIN-10/11 is headed in that direction now too. Very sad.
So a lot of configuration isn't done by checking boxes or filling in fields but instead editing one of two files, the machine.ini or machine.hal file.

The problem with MACH3 is that it's runs on WIN-XP (or WIN-7 with smoothstepper I believe). For WIN-XP it's getting harder to find PCs that will work with that OS. If they are old they may also be temperamental. The other day I powered up my MACH3 CNC Router system and after an hour it started running correctly. Likely PC power supply or capacitors on the motherboard. The writing is on the wall for that.

LinuxCNC even runs on a Raspberry Pi4 connected via Ethernet to one of the MESA cards. I've attached the HAL file (named as .txt so it will upload) for my machine using the MESA 7i92H. Inside that file I documented the two parallel ports relative to the MESA 7i92H pins. I won't say that it's easy to understand all that stuff although there are a lot of read me web pages about what's in the files.
 

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Just to add onto this. In MACH3 it's possible to add MODBUS external modules. I even have a MODIO I bought from Australia but never used... yet... project #42. So the hooks are in MACH3 to add external IO for different purposes. Just now sure how to add say a slider to a MACH3 screen.

With LinuxCNC the same can be done with the panels although again it requires some in depth learning. For example, I added a USB based CAN dongle to the Raspberry Pi4 running LinuxCNC. Then wrote some code and created a panel to be able to load and unload tools with my power drawbar (Project #42 as yet not finished). The mist coolant isn't just straight ON/OFF but I have a small mist pump bought from AliExpress and it's run with PWM by the same external module that controls my drawbar. I talk to it with CAN messages.
Here's what the screen looks like now on the Pi4 LinuxCNC.

I can drag the slider to set the mist motor speed and it then sends periodic messages to the CAN module with 0% to 100% values. Granted this is deep into making a custom CNC system and not for everyone. Most people don't even want that depth. I'm just nuts that's all.

I don't know how easy or if even possible on the turnkey CNC modules like the UCCNC and Centroid.
Screenshot from 2023-09-17 11-26-57.webp
 
Just for fun I made a list of the Pi4 LinuxCNC system costs that I play with on my bench. Really need to mount it all on a board and wire it up permanently. Anyway, also attached is the list of prices. There are some additional costs for cables that I didn't include. Often these can be sourced cheaply or even free.
Pi4-LinuxCNC-hardware-2.webp


BTW, not trying to convince anyone. Just information about this sort of system. For this touch screen I should probably install one of the touch screen user interfaces instead of the standard AXIS one.
 

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slow-poke said:
I have a question regarding ease of use Mach3 vs. Linux CNC or the Acorn software.

With zero experience I found Mach3 to be very intuitive to setup and use. How do the others compare?
Click to expand...
I found UCCNC very easy to use. The manual leaves a bit to be desired because some key bits of info are lost in translation. Once sorted it's easy though.
 
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