Smooth Steppers are finally available in UK !

[JAZZCNC]

However unless you have servos and the speed of the parallel port isn't enough for you, there is little to no point buying a smoothstepper

So you know this from your extensive usage of the SS.?

Mach3 already has a large userbase, so there's currently little incentive for Art to make any major improvements as people will still buy it regardless.

Jonathan this kind of disrespect really annoys me.!!!

First for the things Mach does then it's dirt cheap, yes I agree it's far from perfect but for 95% of people it works with no problems.

Second without Mach or Art fennerty's contribution then DIY CNC would still be in the stone age or not exist at all.!! . . . Little Known is the fact Emc owe's much to Art and his knowledge of the PP and indeed use's some of his code.

Art no longer own's the company but still he contrbutes and resolves many folks problems with Mach thru the Yahoo and Artsoft forum (which more often than not are user errors anyway) . . . How many Company's do you know that you can get to deal 1 to 1 with the lead software engineer for free, often designing and building custom solutions if it's a genuine Mach issue.!
Same goes today with the current owner Brain, he too goes out of his way to help resolve any issues or bugs so please before you shoot your mouth trashing a program who's made DIY CNC both affordable and more importantly possible at least have some respect and not trash a genuine persons rep just because your a tight arse GEEK.!!

Edit: Oh and just for the record and I'm sure John S will back me up on this because like me has frequented the Yahoo forums for many years. . . . There must have been hundreds done exactly what you have done and jumped to EMC but the vast majority return and never go back.!!!

[Jonathan]

So you know this from your extensive usage of the SS.?

As you would say:

Presumption is the mother of all F:U.!! . . . SO NOW. . How the F~@K do you know what I've done or not done with my machine.? Or any other machine for that matter.:exclaim: . . . . . reading a few old post's don't make you Physic Sally.

I know this from some research and my common sense. I don't need to have climbed Mt. Everest to know it's really really cold, because that's obvious.

Jonathan this kind of disrespect really annoys me.!!!

I don't see how I've said anything disrespectful. If Art didn't care about money he wouldn't be charging for it. There's nothing wrong with charging for your work, I never said there was.

Price is relative. Something can only be expensive in the context of something else. Compared to it's nearest competitor, Mach3 is expensive and does fewer things.

without Mach or Art fennerty's contribution then DIY CNC would still be in the stone age or not exist at all

I wouldn't be so sure. Clearly Art has done a great job, but who are we to say someone else wouldn't have done it if he had not?

Little Known is the fact Emc owe's much to Art and his knowledge of the PP and indeed use's some of his code.

They fundamentally have very different architectures so I think that's highly unlikely, could you please provide a reference?

Anyway instead of calling me names perhaps you'd like to point out what I've said that's not true? I never said Art did anything wrong, you're putting words in my mouth. I simply said they have little incentive to improve. If they choose to improve regardless out of the kindness then kudos to them.

Being tight is the only way I can even hope to own a workshop before my 30th birthday. Between being tight and not having a workshop... well I know which one I'm picking.

Could you please not accuse me of things I've not done? I happily admit to being a geek (at least I'm not in denial), but I have most certainly not 'trashed' anyones 'rep'. I would prefer it if you picked fault with what I said instead of who or what I am.

There has been a recent thread over on the Yahoo forum DIY-CNC where a guy called Dan Maulch, well respected builder of CNC systems has been having problems getting a Gecko 540 to work with Linuxcnc. Also on the same forum of two of the Linuxcnc development team who also can't get this thing to work right.

There will always be people having problems - I can list lots of people struggling with Mach3 (with or without smooth-stepper), just because he's having problems and he has a reputation, that's not to say LnuxCNC is bad, at all. You can't use a small number of isolated examples to try to discredit an entire program - the reason people can't help him is likely a hardware rather than a software problem

Another point brought up is why if it's so good and successful it looks like a basic experiment as regards the screens.Our Mach screens have everything, MDI, tool offsets, probe, 4th axis etc and large buttons for touch screens all on one screen, users do not need to move away from this screen.
You can easily zero any axis and jog away if you break a tool, change it and reset offsets and do a run from here.

Don't like our screens?, use someone elses or alter your own.

I don't know how long its been since you've tried linuxCNC, but it has MDI and 4th axis as standard. There's other 'screens' available, the screen for LinuxCNC is fully customisable ... so anyone can make the buttons large if they wish. Linuxcnc has all the functionality you mentioned. Bear in mind, there is a huge library of user contributed content for LinuxCNC and it supports a much wider variety of machines.

[m_c]

As you would say:
Anyway instead of calling me names perhaps you'd like to point out what I've said that's not true? I never said Art did anything wrong, you're putting words in my mouth. I simply said they have little incentive to improve. If they choose to improve regardless out of the kindness then kudos to them.

erm..Mach 4 is under (very) active development, and Mach 3 has been continually tweeked.

I don't know how long its been since you've tried linuxCNC, but it has MDI and 4th axis as standard. There's other 'screens' available, the screen for LinuxCNC is fully customisable ... so anyone can make the buttons large if they wish. Linuxcnc has all the functionality you mentioned. Bear in mind, there is a huge library of user contributed content for LinuxCNC and it supports a much wider variety of machines.

Still can't handle anything without a parallel port though ;)
And that is becoming a major issue. Yes you can trawl ebay and pick up something old that may work for cheap, or pay lots of money for an industrial spec motherboard with a PP and build up your own computer, then go through installing an unfamiliar OS followed by a software program in an unfamiliar enviroment.
Or you can pick up a common as muck familiar windows machine, plug in a SS (or similar), and install the required software in a familiar enviroment.

Now for most users, are they going to go with the more familiar, or less familiar option?


On a side note, I've got a lot of respect for Art, as he is probably one of the, if not, the largest contributors to the development of the DIY CNC scene.
Mach revolutionised DIY CNC machines, as it removed the need for dedicated controllers, and meant users could use a 'normal' computer that most would be familiar with to do things that without Mach, most would of found impossible to do. That is what made Mach so successful, and is what many others are trying to achieve. I'll admit Mach3 has stagnated a bit and has inherent issues, and even Brian has made comments to that effect, but Mach 4 is on it's way. Completely ground up rewrite/structure, and Art is even writing a completely new PP driver addressing several of the issues of the last one.
Yes, somebody else may of came up with something, but I'd doubt DIY CNC would be where it is today, if it hadn't been for Art's innovation.

[rnr107]

Guys ! It was just information.... not the start of a comparison/ WAR? between Mach and CNCLinux .... :-)

What makes the EES attractive to me is the Ethernet port rather than Parallel port for 2 reasons:
1- My workshop is tiny (ask i2i is been there) therefor no space for a full size desktop... So I could use a mini PC, these do not come with Parallel ports...
2- The maximum length a parallel port cable can be is something like 3m before trouble... I would like to keep the PC away from the machine. CAT6 cable (Ethernet) give up to 100m.

Now if I could use CNCLinux with that, that would be the cherry on the top of the cake!

L.

[NB70]

Guys ! It was just information.... not the start of a comparison/ WAR? between Mach and CNCLinux .... :-)

What makes the EES attractive to me is the Ethernet port rather than Parallel port for 2 reasons:
1- My workshop is tiny (ask i2i is been there) therefor no space for a full size desktop... So I could use a mini PC, these do not come with Parallel ports...
2- The maximum length a parallel port cable can be is something like 3m before trouble... I would like to keep the PC away from the machine. CAT6 cable (Ethernet) give up to 100m.

Now if I could use CNCLinux with that, that would be the cherry on the top of the cake!

L.

The Intel Atom mini-ATX systems are supposed to work well with LinuxCNC - although I haven't tried one:

Link: Intel Atom

I have to admit once I started with LinuxCNC (EMC2 as it was then) I got hooked on linux and now I use it for everything. It is missing user-friendly DIY CAM programs though - so I still run Vectric Cut2D and 3D on linux via Wine.

Nathan (a geek!)

[Jonathan]

Just spoke to Art on the phone today.

I'm glad to hear it. I'd love to hear his thoughts on the subject.

"Sorry to be pedantic, but if you're wanting to compare Mach to LinuxCNC, you won't be needing a SS ;)

Sorry to be pedantic, but this thread started with a post about SS so that's what I'm comparing. Here's a modified version of the list for Mach alone:

Mach:
Pros: Familiar, DIY Standard.
Cons: Doesn't support some obscure machines/extras.
Cost: Windows >£50, Mach3 >£50
What you have to lose if you want to switch to the alternative: A few hours of your time, >£100.

you need to stop making assumptions about the original posters requirements/decisions.

What assumptions have I wrongly made?

Plus what's the chances of any computer not coming with Windows?

Mach3 runs on windows 2000 and windows XP. Both are in steady decline with windows vista, 7 and 8 being forced out by Microsoft. It takes 20 minutes to make a bootable pendrive and 30 minutes to install linuxCNC, even on slower computers. I refuse to believe that this should make any sort of difference. The computer gives you clear and simple instructions on what to do, I apologise for not understanding how this poses a problem for so many people. Ubuntu is made to be incredibly user friendly and simple (it's marketed at Apple users amongst others).

Now to give a real example. I'm needing a way to program some ATmega chips.

I'm glad you brought this up. A friend of mine wanted to get into PIC programming just last week. I recommended he buy a PicKit2 clone from ebay. It is digitally identical to Microchip's pickit2 and costs half as much. It interfaces with MPLAB IDE just like a genuine one would do and has freeware firmware updates to interface with Arduinos, that you can download and install easily. I'd pick that over a genuine programmer any day and yes, I do own a genuine PicKit2 for comparison.

I own a gecko 540 driven cnc Taig with a trunnion table.......and I think this is pretty typical...

I wouldn't say a trunnion table is typical for us! I'm sorry I would have a look for a suitable file for you, I'd be surprised if one doesn't exist by now but I don't have the time because I have exams. If you're still interested I'll have a look afterwards. Have you tried asking on the forums for some help on modifying an existing one?

[John S]

I'm glad to hear it. I'd love to hear his thoughts on the subject.

Sorry, over the years I have worked closely with Art and I am still doing so on three different fronts, one is Gearotic which I can mention, the other two are still under wraps. We speak most weeks and I have nothing but complete respect for this guy and what he has done for the CNC comunity virtually single handed. He has made CNC affordable and workable for many people who would not have had this opertunity any other way.
LinuxCNC isn't exactly on everyones lips, in fact the vast majority involved in CNC have never heard of it.

Because of support I know know exactly how many Sieg machines have been sold and to what countries. It's an impressive number given that Russia has installed one in virtually every school not to mention all the other countries. All running on Mach with little or no support given that windows is the most popular program out there and someone somewhere will sort windows problems out.
This also doesn't cover home builds which has got to be in the tens of thousands and the clones like Novacon, How Mau and Syil that were all copied from Sieg in the early days.

Why isn't Linux CNC up there with these numbers?

[Jonathan]

Because of support I know know exactly how many Sieg machines have been sold and to what countries. It's an impressive number given that Russia has installed one in virtually every school not to mention all the other countries. All running on Mach with little or no support given that windows is the most popular program out there and someone somewhere will sort windows problems out.

I'll refer you to my friend who was born in Russia, lived and went to school in Russia for half his life is talking to me on Skype had this to say:

Didn't have one in the school I went to, and never heard of one being in a school. Seeing as funding in Russian state schools is incredibly tight and corrupt, I find your claim difficult to believe. Googling "Sieg ЧПУ в школах" (meaning Sieg CNC in schools) doesn't bring up any relevant results. If anything, briefly looking over the list of linuxCNC developers, I couldn't help but notice a lot of Russian names.

Why isn't Linux CNC up there with these numbers?

The reason is the same reason computing is dominated by Windows, and iPhones are popular: Profitable organisations can afford marketing. But don't worry, all that is changing. Furthermore, this is an argumentum ad populum.

LinuxCNC isn't exactly on everyones lips, in fact the vast majority involved in CNC have never heard of it.

That's precisely why I've gone to the trouble of making as many replies as I have. I don't think it gets the credit it deserves.