Puruvesi MyCNC-ET7 Controller first look.

**Neale** · 30-05-2020

(Jazz - just tried sending PM but your inbox is full!)

**JAZZCNC** · 30-05-2020

ok i'll sort it

**Neale** · 01-06-2020

Quick update for anyone following the saga...

myCNC runs fine on my Win10 laptop and on my Win10 desktop in the office. It does not run on my workshop PC. All run identical copies of Win10 (latest updates, etc). PV are investigating - sounds like the same problem that Jazz reported but it's a bit like Covid-19 in that only some apparently near-identical machines suffer and others do not! Good news from my perspective is that the MPG is supported and actually works better with myCNC than it does with Mach3.

After a lot of messing about trying to set up dual-boot on my workshop PC, I eventually put a second dedicated disk in the thing and have installed the Ubuntu/myCNC iso image available from the PV web site. This is also working fine, MPG support, profile files interchangeable between Windows and Ubuntu systems so all my config work using Windows has moved straight across. To put all this in perspective, it took a fair while to get the Mach3/CSMIO-IP/M/MPG compatibility issues worked out, and even then it was a touch flaky at times. Once myCNC is running, the user interface is absolutely identical on Windows and Linux so it doesn't matter that much to me which platform is used.

First impressions from setting up the thing is that much of what you have learnt from Mach3 does not work with myCNC; everything's there but it works in a very different way. For example, most Mach3 configuration is done via a set of tick boxes and values to put into tables, and the actual working happens in some internal black box. With myCNC and the ET* control boards, almost every bit of functionality is exposed and can be modified, and just getting basic parameters into the thing is somewhat more complicated. For example, the motor outputs and axis mappings are in one place, along with "steps per unit" and a max speed setting, while a different screen collects values for various max feed speeds. However, while limit inputs are set on a different screen, home sensor inputs are defined in the macros that are constructed to actually perform the homing actions. Yes, you have to create your own macros for homing, gantry squaring, etc. However, the documentation is pretty good (and not written in Chinglish), and there are a bunch of "wizards" that let you enter the necessary data (like homing sensor input pin) and it writes the macro for you. But you see the code, and can tweak it if you so desire. Users who struggle with "ports and pins" and the varioius motor settings in Mach3 might find all this a bit off-putting. But if you want to tune the machine to your exact requirements, it's all here. You can also use the given or generated macros and PLC routines as templates and examples when you come to write your own. I have a modified tool-height setting macro in place and I'm about work on a couple more variants plus tool-change macro. I can see why this controller might be used by commercial machine builders who can tune and tweak and extend to suit their particular needs; this is the kind of stuff that you only need to do once and then you hide it from the user who only ever sees the buttons to make it work.

I shall be looking at screen editing sometime as well. No GUI-based screen editor, but the screens are defined in XML modules which are easily edited and again there's plenty of material provided to act as examples if you need another screen layout.

I'm just pleased that I now have a system where I can just switch on the PC and while I'm fiddling about retuning the radio and so on, the PC is booting directly into myCNC. And it waits for the controller to be switched on and doesn't bitch about the IP/M not being ready yet - which usually meant stopping and starting Mach3 once the control box was powered up. The homing button now homes all axes and squares the gantry all by itself - another Mach3/CSMIO issue fixed. All good fun, even if I'm not expecting wonders from the improved S-curve trajectory planner with my machine's somewhat limited performance. But we'll see in due course.

**JAZZCNC** · 01-06-2020

Originally Posted by Neale

I'm just pleased that I now have a system where I can just switch on the PC and while I'm fiddling about retuning the radio and so on, the PC is booting directly into myCNC. And it waits for the controller to be switched on and doesn't bitch about the IP/M not being ready yet - which usually meant stopping and starting Mach3 once the control box was powered up. The homing button now homes all axes and squares the gantry all by itself - another Mach3/CSMIO issue fixed. All good fun, even if I'm not expecting wonders from the improved S-curve trajectory planner with my machine's somewhat limited performance. But we'll see in due course.

Nah that's not fair Neale.!!. . . . . The ET would complain just the same if you hadn't turned on the control box before the software started. If the card isn't powered it can't connect so it's going to bitch. Or are you saying it will startup and bitch but when the controller comes online it just connects.? . . . If I could get it to work then I'd obviously know this.!! . . . I'm on 3rd win10 PC now it won't work with.??

RANT WARNING.!! . . . I'm starting to get slightly pissed off with this card now.!... I've wasted another 4hrs... It's advertised as being able to run on Win10 and it won't or won't reliably.
I don't want to use Linux based PCs or mess around with dual booting etc. I need Windows-based Pc's so my users can use software packages like Vectric etc on the same PC. Plus if I wanted to use Linux based Pc's and mess around writing Macros then I'd use LinuxCNC with Mesa cards and save my self a lot of money.

This isn't really acceptable to me for a Card costing $700.!. . . . . I'm very disappointed to be honest because while it may work reliably on Linux OS it feels like they are selling a Beta version for Win OS and it's still got bugs clearly.

**m_c** · 01-06-2020

My guess is it will be something network/firewall related.
Win10 can be a nightmare for certain things randomly not working, and due to the mix of simple settings screens and old detailed settings, finding the right option can be challenging. Even with the firewall seemingly completely disabled, some connections still refuse to work.

I had to run an entire event over wifi once, because Win10 on my laptop simply refused to let me use a wired connection and connect to the required software from other laptops. Then when I got home and tried it to try and work out what the problem was, it worked perfectly. I still don't know what the problem was, and it's worked fine ever since :-/

**Neale** · 01-06-2020

To clarify - my experience has been that if I start Mach3 before the control box is switched on, or don't wait for 10s or so for the IP/M to start up, then I have to shut down Mach3 and restart it. myCNC and the ET6 don't care which order they start in - they just connect.

Frustration with your system understood - I would prefer Windows to Linux myself, but I can run with either. It's only the fact that I have seen it running on Win10 on a couple of systems that lets me believe that it should work. In my case, it seems to run reasonably OK on Windows (I've run it for a fair while but mainly for testing/configuration and only a little bit of cutting) on two machines, but crashes almost immediately on the workshop PC and I never even see the main GUI.

**JAZZCNC** · 01-06-2020

Originally Posted by Neale

To clarify - my experience has been that if I start Mach3 before the control box is switched on, or don't wait for 10s or so for the IP/M to start up, then I have to shut down Mach3 and restart it. myCNC and the ET6 don't care which order they start in - they just connect.

That is normal for most Ethernet-based cards that use a plug-in type system. The card as to be powered before the software is started so they can talk to each other, it's just the way they work it's not a fault so can't really blame the Controller. It's like trying to Drive off in your car, you learn to start the engine first.!

I've not given up on this yet but at this money, it should work straight out of the box and the Fact Win10 is a pain in the arse shouldn't come into it because other software/hardware company's manage to make their controllers work with it no problems.

Regards the PC's they are not exactly low spec and 3 completely different machines. I've been doing this shit a long time and I've built lots of PC's so I'm not exactly green when it comes to PCs. I'm also very used to wrestling controllers into life so if I can't figure it out then your average DIY CNC builder is screwed.!! Again I shouldn't be doing this at $700

**ivan-mycnc** · 05-06-2020

Hey Dean, sorry to hear you are having trouble. We've been getting reports of these Windows issues lately and are currently working around the clock to try and fix them - it's not exactly clear what particular hardware combination is causing these problems. All the Windows machines that we have on hand run myCNC fine - however, I do realize that is little help to you since you are stuck with a controller that doesn't want to play nicely with your computer!

In order to diagnose these problems, we have reached out to Neale, as well as some of our other clients to try and see if we can isolate the problem (that is again, not reproducible on our end). We have a couple of leads and are working on a solution. Let me know if you'd be interested in having us connect to your computer remotely to try and see if we can gather some more info that way.

Once again, sorry for the trouble.

**Neale** · 05-06-2020

Just to join the dots - I had a remote desktop session with one of the PV engineers a couple of days ago which helped to localise the problem area (appears to be some kind of discontinuity between the 3D graphics in myCNC and the graphics card OpenGL driver). The engineer has contacted me again today and we should be having another test session early next week so that he can run a debug version of the software to better analyse exactly where the problem lies. He did leave me with a workaround which is allowing me to run myCNC on my "problem" workshop PC although with some minor restrictions (which do not interfere with my normal operation). At least I can continue working on playing with some macros for the time being (my set of tool-height setting macros, sorting the M6 tool change macro to suit my way of working, MPG programming, etc).

There are a couple of other more minor Windows-related issues to do with screen sizing and startup position - as it stands, the initial configuration comes up with the myCNC window somewhat displaced to the right. That's OK - there are startup options to fix that. Unfortunately, on a smaller monitor, the "save configuration" button is off the edge... I'm told that a fix is coming out shortly! I fixed this one by doing the initial configuration on a two-screen PC, then copying the profile to my target machine. It's also possible to edit the relevant .xml file, except that until you have done it, it's not obvious which parameter needs to be changed. If anyone wants more info, give me a shout but at the moment I suspect that Dean and I are the only forum members (outside Ivan and friends) with an ET* series card.

**ivan-mycnc** · 09-06-2020

This is just an update on the issues Neale has been facing - the problem ended up being the fact that his computer did not have NVidia drivers installed, so whenever the software would attempt to use OpenGL (for 3D visualization), the myCNC application would crash. Something to keep an eye on in the future.

Unrelated to that, we have been preparing a couple of videos related to network setup for myCNC since setting the network connection is the first and most important step. Here is a link to Part 1 of the series: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKypCtl1oL0

In short, the myCNC controller has a static IP address (192.168.0.78 by default), that 1) has to be unique within your local network, 2) has to be in the same subnet as the computer's IP address, and 3) has to be entered into myCNC (Settings > Config > Network tab). A static IP has proven to be a good solution in an industrial environment (for example, when a couple controllers are connected into a network to control one machine, or when one computer is used to control multiple independent machines). Plug-and-play devices, in our experience, tend to be harder to set up in an industrial environment as we have not found an optimal solution to ensure that multiple control boards do not conflict with one another that way.

The video above should serve as a good starting point for anyone who is having trouble setting up a connection between a Windows PC (either Windows 7 or Windows 10) and a myCNC controller. The network setup is only done once, and should take a couple minutes at most.

Aside from that, if anyone has more questions, I'm always happy to answer them here or through email.