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  1. #51
    Quote Originally Posted by A_Camera View Post
    ...and at what price? Five times the price of UC300ETH with less inputs/outputs? Sure, it is in a fancy box equipped with opto coplers but hey, for that much money... :)

    I think we are getting cross connected here. What I mean is why don't UC supply connectors ? Pokeys had exactly the same problem as they use IDE's and people were asking for cable kits and Pokeys asked why ?

    Simple reason is anyone working in electronics has all these cables, they buy the ends in by the 100's and cable by the 50M reel but they don't understand that the end user has more chance of having a 100 spare M6 nuts and bolts that he does electronic parts.

    End result is they put a cabling kit up and I think it costs 19 Euro, or thereabouts.
    A piddling amount for the grief that users had to get it.

    Don't get me wrong that I'm knocking the product because I'm not. I'm knocking the presentation knowing they could do so much better with hardly any more work.

    At the moment the CNC controller world is wide open. We have many looking to upgrade from Mach3 which has been an awesome piece of software. If it wasn't for Art Fenarty on his own then 1,000's of users would not be into CNC at this point. The baton should have been passed to Mach 4 but Brian dropped it big time as evidenced by some of the long time users like Ger21 and Terry Parker switching camps to other controllers.

    We are now split between Bert Eddings, Planet CNC, UCCNC and the stand alone Chinese controllers that are showing up.

    Thee is not much to choose between the fisrt three although Bert and Planet do have lathe threading up to a point.
    However all of them lack this last works out the box scenerio that will put them in front.

    Once one of these three does that they will be the new mach3 as controller of choice as regards easy setting up foe beginners and semi- skilled.

    Forget the software and electronic guys, they can get anything working if you throw enough time at it.

    Your market is the same market that flooded to Art's door.
    John S -

  2. #52
    Quote Originally Posted by A_Camera View Post
    I may not have a lot of experience in machining but have about 40 years in electronics, so I am really not worried about such simple things.
    Well I do and I'm telling you in my expereince they are cause of most troubles on CNC machine.(After broken/lose wires)

    It's like the USB argument I've had so many times with people like you.! . . . People who have insisted there's nothing wrong with USB for CNC it works fine, they never have any troubles with it.!! . . . . Total Bollocks. Compared to Ethernet it sucks.
    Anyone who works and maintains CNC equipment will tell you it's pain in the arse and can't be trusted not to lockup. Well the Same goes with Cheap Bob's they can't be trusted and will fail or cause issues at some point, often sooner rather than later.

    If they are working for you then great but that doesn't change the fact they are potential trouble causers best avoided.

  3. #53
    I'll back Jazz on this and throw a bit of history into the ring.

    I started off converting standard bench top Mills into CNC and bought what we could get hold of.
    At that time Arturo Duncan over at CNC4PC was doing opto isolated cards but when fitted to the drivers of the day, also opto isolated they crawled, big time and we got him to bring a non isolated card out on just the motor outputs so you only had one opto, the one in the drive.

    This was called the C11G board, G standing for Gecko. we bought many but they were not reliable and what sealed it was we had to pay about
    £16 to £19 in import duty, handling and VAT for each card. Not a problem until cards went back for repair and we got hit for anout £16 - £19 because he was too idle to mark it returned unit - FOC.

    We paid for one card 3 times and I kid you not, that was the end of it and we also got Sieg over in China to swap to a Chinese sourced card that in 500 ? unit only ever failed once when a heat sink fell off the 7805 chip and shorted something out.

    At the same time looking for something cheaper we tried the System 3 cards from DIYCNC. Even though we had Roy down at our place to show him cards not working correctly we still covered a few thousand miles sorting his problems out at our expense. We even took cards and computers back to his place to show they wouldn't work together.

    At this time Sieg got into the turnkey CNC market and we flew to China to do a deal with them. WE built the first KX1 in my workshop and it was sent to China with all the drawings. It did actually get returned at one point which I never expected and it's still up in my hayloft. Very similar to what they turned out in production but for some reason it's opposite handed as regards motors on the X and the cabinet, not that it matters.
    We didn't make a KX3, they scaled the KX1 up.

    I do know how many have been produced as we do world wide web support on them, correction, world wide except Asia and Russia.
    However I can't disclose that figure but it is in the tens of thousands.

    It's always the little problems as Jazz says that trip you up, silly things that with a bit of fore sight would not happen.

    As well as building machines I also deliver some and train users. Up to a few years ago we also used to attend shows with a KX1 and a KX3 in cabinets so they could run under power cutting steel, always steel at shows.

    It's because of probably this unique situation in the UK that I know a lot of what people want and expect from a machine or attendant software.

    Jazz is unique in that he works on routers, I work on lathes and mills, believe it or not, totally different animals. A mill can work fine on a USB card as the speeds are very much slower than the kernel speed the computer is able to reach. On a mill or lathe the controller is always waiting for the machine unlike a router which can easily outrun the controller, especially if servo's are used.

    I watched the video and frankly I wasn't impressed. You quote 10,000mm /min speed but on a machine such as yours you don't have the room and I'll bet it never gets over 2500mm / min
    I'm certain that a standard mill running a standard copy of M3 could do this file the same.
    Perhaps UCCNC is capable of more but it will take it to be installed on a larger machine than that. I feel the file doesn't do justice to the software
    John S -

  4. The Following User Says Thank You to John S For This Useful Post:


  5. #54
    Once one of these three does that they will be the new mach3 as controller of choice as regards easy setting up foe beginners and semi- skilled.

    I think that UCCNC has a big advantage here.

    1) UCCNC was designed to "feel" very much like Mach3. They both have very similar controls, and the setup is very similar.
    While the macro language is different (C#), it's very similar to Mach3. The terminology is very similar, with buttons, LED's, and DRO's.
    UCCNC also has an integrated screen designer that's far superior to Mach3's, (Screen4) if you like to customize the interface.

    2) Mach3's success had a lot to do with the users, pushing Art to add features and make it better and better.
    While Terry and I don't often agree on things, we are both trying to get all of Mach3's capabilities into UCCNC, without any of the bugs. There have been new releases every few weeks, with both new features and minor bug fixes.

    I don't have any experience with PlanetCNC, but I've heard that it works well.
    I seriously considered Eding CNC, but it just seemed a little too "non standard" for me. Bert seemed to be very helpful and accommodating, though.

    On the subject of hardware.
    The UC300ETH is really no different than a Smoothstepper, which is hands down the most popular Mach3 motion controller. Both need similar breakout boards, and with the M44 motherboard, some breakout boards designed for the SS can be used with the UC300ETH.
    The difference, though, is that I've seen years of poor plugin development from Warp9, while CNC Drive provides fully functional firmware right out of the gate. With bug fixes in days, rather than years.

    I forgot, there is a 24V motherboard for the UC300 from Hungary:

    https://www.cncpart.hu/uc300-5441

    I need to ask some questions about it to CNC Drive.
    Gerry
    ______________________________________________
    UCCNC 2022 Screenset

    Mach3 2010 Screenset

    JointCAM - CAM for Woodworking Joints

  6. #55
    m_c's Avatar
    Lives in East Lothian, United Kingdom. Last Activity: 3 Days Ago Forum Superstar, has done so much to help others, they deserve a medal. Has been a member for 9-10 years. Has a total post count of 2,908. Received thanks 360 times, giving thanks to others 8 times.
    Quote Originally Posted by 1Jumper10 View Post
    Im trying to think of all the equipment on my router that is not opto isolated that i have connected directly to my UC4400ETH. The servos are, as I recall the vfd is, so I believe the only thing that leaves is three sensors and a DAC. And I think I remember reading in the uc400 eth manual that's the inputs can sink a maximum of 20 milliamps? And I was careful to make sure that the power converter for the switches and the DAC all share a common ground with the uc400 eth. My point is, I didn't use a breakout board. The breakout board I used was simply an expansion of the connections on the uc400 eth. I could be wrong, but I don't think that a breakout board is absolutely necessary. At least mine's working fine without it right now.
    Your servos and VFDs may have optoisolated inputs, but what happens if the wire shorts out to a high voltage source?

    The main reason for optoisolated BOBs, is so that if a fault develops in the wiring resulting in high voltage where it shouldn't be, the opto on the BOB gets fried, and not the controller.
    Avoiding the rubbish customer service from AluminiumWarehouse since July '13.

  7. #56
    Quote Originally Posted by Ger21 View Post
    I forgot, there is a 24V motherboard for the UC300 from Hungary:

    https://www.cncpart.hu/uc300-5441

    I need to ask some questions about it to CNC Drive.
    Looks interesting but at £350 for the breakout board plus the UCCNC it's over the cost of the high end Chinese stand alone controllers.

    Then you are again involving two companies.
    John S -

  8. #57
    Looks interesting but at £350 for the breakout board plus the UCCNC it's over the cost of the high end Chinese stand alone controllers.
    Then you are again involving two companies.
    It puts you in the price range of the CS Labs stuff.

    I don't see the two companies as being an issue. They are just providing a board, so there aren't software issues like you see with Mach3/Mach4, where the motion controller developers have to write their own plugins.
    CNC Drive will always develop their own motion controllers and write all of the software/firmware, so you don't have compatibility issues.
    Gerry
    ______________________________________________
    UCCNC 2022 Screenset

    Mach3 2010 Screenset

    JointCAM - CAM for Woodworking Joints

  9. The Following User Says Thank You to Ger21 For This Useful Post:


  10. #58
    Quote Originally Posted by John S View Post
    And multi line encoder threading. <g>
    Looking in the manual, it does appear that they support multiline encoder threading.


    Encoder PPR: This is a numeric value and defines the pulse per revolution of the incremental
    encoder which is used to feedback the spindle position in synchronous thread cutting applications.

    They just don't have a lathe screenset yet.

    Last edited by Lee Roberts; 13-11-2016 at 04:12 PM. Reason: Added vid
    Gerry
    ______________________________________________
    UCCNC 2022 Screenset

    Mach3 2010 Screenset

    JointCAM - CAM for Woodworking Joints

  11. #59
    Quote Originally Posted by John S View Post
    I think we are getting cross connected here. What I mean is why don't UC supply connectors ? Pokeys had exactly the same problem as they use IDE's and people were asking for cable kits and Pokeys asked why ?
    CNC Drive provides one connector, it is a cable with IDC26 on one end and DB25 on the other. Additional cables are sold for €3.50 each. They don't sell any screw terminal blocks like these:

    Attachment 19599

    ...but is that really an issue? I mean, eBay is full of those. CNC Drive don't have any BOBs which they have received some criticism for, but again, eBay is full of them, you can buy any cheap or expensive one or use the one you already have if it is an upgrade from a parallel port driven to USB or Ethernet. So, at least for me, it doesn't really matter that the motion controller is not boxed in a fancy box and that CNC Drive does not have any BOBs or connection kits for sale or included in the product. In fact, I think that it is better NOT to include such trivialities because it gives the user the flexibility others don't provide. I don't want to pay for things I don't need and I think flexible solutions it is a good idea. Never the less, yes, they should have BOB's and connection kits as option, I have no problems with that.

    Quote Originally Posted by John S View Post
    Simple reason is anyone working in electronics has all these cables, they buy the ends in by the 100's and cable by the 50M reel but they don't understand that the end user has more chance of having a 100 spare M6 nuts and bolts that he does electronic parts.

    End result is they put a cabling kit up and I think it costs 19 Euro, or thereabouts.
    A piddling amount for the grief that users had to get it.
    Like I said, I agree that they should have a connection kit in the shop but without losing the possibility and the flexibility of only buying the motion controller without the kit. I would not welcome to be forced to buy that kit, even if it would only cost €19.

    Quote Originally Posted by John S View Post
    Don't get me wrong that I'm knocking the product because I'm not. I'm knocking the presentation knowing they could do so much better with hardly any more work.
    It's a company making machines in the weight magnitude of tonnes. The hobby market is fairly new to them, they are making their way up and have very good products. The only reason I bought the UC300ETH is the experience I have with their UC300USB, and the many positive feedbacks I read about their products, the most sold is the UC100, which is very well received and have good reputation. It is a simple and easy plug-and-play product, which the UC300 or the UC400 is not, these are not even boxed, so I guess they assumed that people who buy these products know why and what to do with it. The experience I have with the UC300USB, which I have used for over a year, is very positive, and I believe the UC300ETH experience will be even better. But... it is a new product as far as the Ethernet interface is concerned.

    What is definitely better than other companies I have heard about, is their communication and the support they provide. Send a mail and you receive answers worth reading. They listen (maybe some times too much) to their customers and provide help. If someone finds a bug it gets fixed pretty fast, if someone has some special issue they help solving it. That in my opinion is worth more than a well written manual, because regardless how well a manual is written there will always be people who need help. Never the less, there is room for improvements, and hopefully the next product will be even better.

    Quote Originally Posted by John S View Post
    At the moment the CNC controller world is wide open. We have many looking to upgrade from Mach3 which has been an awesome piece of software. If it wasn't for Art Fenarty on his own then 1,000's of users would not be into CNC at this point. The baton should have been passed to Mach 4 but Brian dropped it big time as evidenced by some of the long time users like Ger21 and Terry Parker switching camps to other controllers.

    We are now split between Bert Eddings, Planet CNC, UCCNC and the stand alone Chinese controllers that are showing up.

    Thee is not much to choose between the fisrt three although Bert and Planet do have lathe threading up to a point.
    However all of them lack this last works out the box scenerio that will put them in front.

    Once one of these three does that they will be the new mach3 as controller of choice as regards easy setting up foe beginners and semi- skilled.

    Forget the software and electronic guys, they can get anything working if you throw enough time at it.

    Your market is the same market that flooded to Art's door.
    Maybe you are right, I don't know. It is though true that people like me, one of "the software and electronic guys" can make anything working, so yes, a kit and instructions how to connect their product would boost their sales but to be honest, boosting sales is not always a goal, some times "just enough" is better because when you boost too much you may not have time and energy to continue providing the good valuable support to so many. Keeping sales at lower level can actually also mean higher income per invested $$$, as well as higher "reputation value", easier support and better/more functional company organisation. Also, maybe their target group is more like the "software and electronic guys" and the machinists with interests in those areas than the traditional machinists who often start threads with sentences like "Help - I am a total idiot in terms electronics and cabling, currently building a CNC from scratch and nothing works." People like those often build a very nice machine in terms of mechanical design, but can't handle the simplest connections, never mind more complex electrical problems. It's a risky business to try help those people if you run a business and I don't think support can ever be enough for those. So I don't think boosting sales to high volumes is always a good idea. Some times you better let a customer group go somewhere else.

  12. #60
    Quote Originally Posted by Ger21 View Post
    Looking in the manual, it does appear that they support multiline encoder threading.


    Encoder PPR: This is a numeric value and defines the pulse per revolution of the incremental
    encoder which is used to feedback the spindle position in synchronous thread cutting applications.

    They just don't have a lathe screenset yet.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PVYLCoFoK8
    Now that looks good, if they sort out the screenset I can see me spending some money with them ;-)

    - Nick
    You think that's too expensive? You're not a Model Engineer are you? :D

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