Puruvesi MyCNC-ET7 Controller first look.

[JAZZCNC]

( First things first, LEE can we please have a section for Machine Components because of components like this which cover a wide range of machine types.!)

Ok well as the title says I've got my hands on a new controller, new to me that is, these controllers have been around quite a long time and fitted in many industrial applications, Often hidden behind the scenes disguised as manufacturers own brand.

The video says pretty much everything about why I've got it so check it out if interests you and ask any questions and I'll try to answer. If you want me to test it with anything in particular or in a certain way just ask and I'll see what can do.

One thing I didn't touch on in the video is that at first, it may seem a little pricey but when you compare it with other boards and what it offers it's actually very good value on spec alone. But when you factor in that the Software is free and you are not paying for a license it gets even better.

The ET-7 I'm showing is 6-axis Step/Dir with 3 encoder inputs for Full closed-loop capability on 3-axis if required (why only 3 I'm not sure.?) which you don't find on many cards anyway and those that do tend to be much higher prices. The ET-10 which isn't a massive amount of money more is even better in that it offers both Analog and Step/Dir fully closed loop on all 6-Axis and a lot more I/O.
The ET-6 is also very good spec at the lower end but doesn't offer Encoders. But again when you consider no other boards are required or software licenses etc it's still good value for a High spec 6 axis card with advanced software.

The reason I say Advanced software is because, the other thing all of them offer, which very few other software/controllers at this price do is an "S" Curve motion profile planner which makes for silky smooth motion, which for routers and fast-moving machines doing 3D type work is a great advantage.

Anyway here's Video.


https://youtu.be/5ybtSaJHjak

[Doddy]

Re. your first grumble - (terminal blocks) it's a big grumble if you need to meter the signals - not entirely unrealistic when debugging the machine wiring.

[JAZZCNC]

Re. your first grumble - (terminal blocks) it's a big grumble if you need to meter the signals - not entirely unrealistic when debugging the machine wiring.

Get what you are saying but if anything they make that easier because the wires are facing straight up and easily accessible(which could be another grumble because I'd like them to come out sideways for entering the trunking..Lol). I would never meter of terminal screws anyway.

[Doddy]

Okay, impressed with the documentation. I'm in a pickle now, with an UC300eth/UCCNC/W10 running Mill#1, the software for which doesn't support turning. A 7i76e/LinuxCNC which supports turning, but is a bit of a hatchet job in terms of polished software (but I love the board and small things like the functional segregation / choice of connectors - allows you to swap axis around with complete ease), and now this - which looks to support both n-axis machining and turning (tbh, the website seems to concentrate a little on plasma... maybe that's my next project...). The boards are a little pricey - I take your point about the software licensing - that's certainly a consideration (I'd have to buy a second UCCNC license if I wanted to use this on my second mill).

I think I'd be interested in hearing how you're getting on with the software and compatibility with F360 and the likes. Is this a turnkey solution? Also your opinion of MyCNC and support? - their help forum looks to still be in its infancy.

[johnsattuk]

Probably my WinXP but no link showing:neglected:

[JAZZCNC]

Probably my WinXP but no link showing:neglected:

Not sure what your meaning with this John, care to explain.?

[johnsattuk]

Link to your video is not appearing.

Just tried a win10 PC at it appears OK

[Neale]

Hey, it says it supports the wireless pendant I use as well. That marks it out from the pack! Hardly the biggest decision factor but if I added the price of the UCCNC pendant to the UC300ETH/UB1/UCCNC software bundle, the price difference ain't that great.

Wonder when there will be enough interest that we see UK pricing and delivery costs?

[JAZZCNC]

Okay, impressed with the documentation. I'm in a pickle now, with an UC300eth/UCCNC/W10 running Mill#1, the software for which doesn't support turning. A 7i76e/LinuxCNC which supports turning, but is a bit of a hatchet job in terms of polished software (but I love the board and small things like the functional segregation / choice of connectors - allows you to swap axis around with complete ease), and now this -

Well I can tell you straight away in terms of build quality(other than the connector layout) it knocks the spots off UC300Eth and UB1 combo which is all I've used in the past. The build quality is what puts me off there boards, they are hobby controllers and they feel like hobby controllers in terms of build quality. This controller just feels more industrial and better built.
Regards price then a UC300 + UB1 + License won't be far behind the ET-6 and you still won't have lathe etc.

I agree on the Mesa cards, they are hard to beat in terms of value and they are built very well. Shame the software is so hard to get on with and not very intuiative. It requires a large learning curve to get the most from the cards and because of how it's developed, then for me personally who want's to fit to these cards to customers machines who need single knowledge source they can turn to if got any issues rather than using a forum and waiting. This alone is worth paying a little extra for IMO.



I think I'd be interested in hearing how you're getting on with the software and compatibility with F360 and the likes. Is this a turnkey solution? Also your opinion of MyCNC and support? - their help forum looks to still be in its infancy.

I will report back any findings. Not sure what your meaning by turn key.? . . . It's nothing special just for me if that's what you mean, it's just a motion control card anyone else can buy and as been around for a long time.
Regards MyCNC and the support, then so far for the few questions I've asked it's been very good with a quick and knowledgable reply but without being over complicated.
Ivan from MyCNC is on this forum and very helpful so if you have any questions I don't cover then give him a shout directly.

[JAZZCNC]

Wonder when there will be enough interest that we see UK pricing and delivery costs?

The shipping was reasonable at $50 which is about right from Canada and came quickly enough. There is also 10% discount for Mycncuk members I believe.
You will get slapped for the usual import Vat etc. Was £89 this included rip off £15 handling fee

BUT . . . That said I'm not recommending anyone buy this card based on my first impressions. While this board is very well made and the Software looks very capable plus the folks behind it are very helpful, it's still got to do the business on the machines. So lets see.!!!

[JAZZCNC]

Also your opinion of MyCNC and support? - their help forum looks to still be in its infancy.

Oh and regards the forum then you may have missed the English speaking side which you will see is a little more grown up.

http://forum.pv-automation.com/viewforum.php?f=9

[Boyan Silyavski]

This 3mhz is per channel or is divided by the motor count?

I remember i looked at them in the past, don't remember what put me off then. Price may be.

[JAZZCNC]

This 3mhz is per channel or is divided by the motor count?

Yes It's per channel I believe.

Hope your safe over there Boyan, looks like spain is in a little bit more of a mess than we are here regards death toll. Stay safe mate.

[Neale]

I've been taking a closer look at these cards (well, actually the ET6) as I continue to get annoyed by silly little things with my Mach3/CSMIO-IP/M/wireless pendant setup. One thing that concerned me and which is a bit of a pain with the IP/M is gantry squaring. Looking at their web site and a downloaded copy of the MyCNC software, it looked as if this would work OK but I couldn't see if it could handle software gantry squaring adjustment or would need mechanical alignment of the home switches. Couldn't find anything in the documentation, searching for words like master/slave axes, so asked them the question. Then I had a prowl around their support forum to see if anyone had asked before, and by following an odd link in a slightly relevant post, I found that the documentation does include some info on gantry squaring. Pages and pages of it, including blow-by-blow descriptions of the associated macros, and even a video clip (11 minutes of it!) showing a couple of different methods of doing it. It does everything I would want it to do, and then some. And I have never, ever, seen quite so much detail provided in a manual. So apart from the fact that it is incredibly well-hidden, it's great!

At the moment, every time I start up my machine, I have to go into the CSMIO config page, disable axis slaving, run a custom homing macro that allows for gantry squaring, back into CSMIO config and re-enable slaving, then I have to jog each of the three axes off the home position with the pendant (not Mach3, not by running any gcode) or I get limit switch messages as soon as I move anything. Then there's the random soft limit errors, sometimes before a job will run, sometimes after a tool change. Suddenly, $400 for a board plus management software that is electrically compatible with what I have doesn't seem like such a bad deal...

[Neale]

After a session yesterday bitching at my machine with its clumsy gantry squaring/homing process and various other issues, I've ordered an ET6. My requirements are a bit different to Dean's as I'm looking for a one-off replacement for an existing controller rather than something that might need to be used for a whole series of different machines/users.

I am optimistic that it's going to be a fairly straightforward replacement for the current IP/M, apart from being a bare board that will need some kind of mounting fabricated. Electrically similar with 24V operation, differential signalling to stepper drivers, etc. I've spent a bit of time reading the documentation; downside compared with Mach3 is that it looks a bit more fiddly to configure the software but upside is more functionality and flexibility. And that screen layout looks a shoe-in for a touchscreen monitor in due course, which would be smaller and neater than what I use today. We shall see...

[Boyan Silyavski]

Squaring must be done with a push of a button. Or not at all, as manually i will slave them faster. On mine machine i slave them manually as my endstops are squared and by hand i move one side until led lights on. It's not ideal but at least saves me my nervous system dealing with not well thought controllers

[JAZZCNC]

Squaring must be done with a push of a button. Or not at all, as manually i will slave them faster. On mine machine i slave them manually as my endstops are squared and by hand i move one side until led lights on. It's not ideal but at least saves me my nervous system dealing with not well thought controllers

Rubbish.!! . . . If the controller is set up correctly then it works perfectly fine every time. Simply push the Home button and it's done. I can tell you without hesitation you won't Home and square faster than any machine with a properly setup system.

Neale is trying to force the controller to do something it's not designed to do which is why he's struggling. The IP-S which does have the system works perfectly every time and homes/squares in a blink of an eye.

[Boyan Silyavski]

Rubbish.!! . . . If the controller is set up correctly then it works perfectly fine every time. Simply push the Home button and it's done. I can tell you without hesitation you won't Home and square faster than any machine with a properly setup system.

Neale is trying to force the controller to do something it's not designed to do which is why he's struggling. The IP-S which does have the system works perfectly every time and homes/squares in a blink of an eye.

Ehh, rubish. What did i say above. It must be done with a push of a button. But if you want to argue with me even we both say the same thing then you are welcome :toot:

[JAZZCNC]

Ehh, rubish. What did i say above. It must be done with a push of a button. But if you want to argue with me even we both say the same thing then you are welcome :toot:

Ok I miss read what you meant, I thought you meant must be done and quicker by jogging..:stupid:

[Neale]

One of my problems is that I am using the IP/M which supports dual axis machines but does not do gantry squaring. To do that, you pay a lot more money for the IP/S. Originally, when I turned the machine on, I homed it using the standard Mach3/IP/M homing routine. X and A axes move together but you cannot guarantee that the gantry is square. So, I hit e-stop to take power off the motors, turned the A motor by hand until the LED on the proximity switch went out/came on (copying the Mach3 homing routine), then reset and rehomed again. That is OK but it was difficult to be exact, partly because when X homes it then moves the axis a short distance (1mm, I think) to move it away from the prox switch but I was never sure exactly how much to move the A axis to match.

My current system involves going into the IP/M configuration dialogue, turning off slaving, running a custom macro that homes both X and A simultaneously, and then turning slaving back on. In principle this is more accurate as you can use the "home offset" feature to make fine adjustments to the gantry position at each end to get it square and use that to repeat accurate squaring each time. But it's a clumsy process, particularly if you forget one of the dozen or so mouse clicks needed to do it.

I have other problems with my machine setup as well which I believe are due to interactions with my wireless pendant as well at the firmware/plugin level - each of the components works fine by itself and it's just that combination that gives trouble.

So, I've tried "simple but not very accurate", "accurate but fiddly", and now I want to do "quick and accurate"!

[JAZZCNC]

My current system involves going into the IP/M configuration dialogue, turning off slaving, running a custom macro that homes both X and A simultaneously, and then turning slaving back on. In principle this is more accurate as you can use the "home offset" feature to make fine adjustments to the gantry position at each end to get it square and use that to repeat accurate squaring each time. But it's a clumsy process, particularly if you forget one of the dozen or so mouse clicks needed to do it.

This can be done without going into the Plug-in by using outputs to disable the drives enable signals and homing each side a few times. It's possible to make it measure the difference between switches and calculate how far to move each side and then Zero out. Then turn the drives enables back on.
This is basically all the IP-S does, but it does this internally inside the plug-in, it's easy enough to write a homing macro to do the same.

[Neale]

That sounds reasonable - I can see how that would work. The code wouldn't be that difficult. If I had known about it when I first set the machine up, I might even have done it! At the moment the drive enable signals come via the safety relay (which also switches the e-stop input to the IP/M and switches mains to the stepper PSU via a contactor - belt, braces and electric trouser hoist). Given that my ET6 should arrive in a few weeks, though, I don't fancy grubbing about in the control box to do the rewiring. I think it would also need X and A home switches in series to the same IP/M input so that the macro could home either axis by disabling the other while telling it to home the master/slave pair. More rewiring on my machine would be needed!

But thanks for the comment - I'll keep that one in the back of my mind.

[Gustave]

Hello Dean,
In a lot of post you talk about CSMIO controller. Are you going to switch to Puruvesi controller, what the pros/cons of ET6/7 over the CSMIO IP/S ?

[JAZZCNC]

Hello Dean,
In a lot of post you talk about CSMIO controller. Are you going to switch to Puruvesi controller, what the pros/cons of ET6/7 over the CSMIO IP/S ?

Hi Gustave,

At the moment I'm still using Cslabs controllers and they are an excellent controller but the weak link is Mach3. And because it's not being supported any more then it's getting left behind and likewise, Cslab's are not supporting it either and concentrating on Mach 4 and there own software, both of which I don't like. So this is mostly why I'm looking to move away, It has nothing to do with the controller and the IP-S is an excellent controller.

Regards the ET6 then you can't really compare it to the IP-S as it's more in line with the IP-M regards I/O etc but with a few nice added features like Gantry squaring.

The ET-7 is more in line with the IP-S and again it as few extra added features that you may or may not need like encoder inputs for things like MPG's or reading linear encoders, etc. These would be extra for the IP-S.

If I was looking for a card today and needed the extra I/O this price range offers then between the two I would go for the ET7. If I didn't need the extra I/O then I'd go with the ET6.

But I still haven't tested this card ET7 other than on the bench so please don't take this as a recommendation because it's not and I wouldn't recommend anything unless I've fully tested and used them my self on a machine for a good few weeks or months.

I'll also disclose that I've had issues getting it to work with windows 10 and it would only work with windows 7 and even then it wasn't stable.
However, this was just around the time this corona started and Ivan at puruvesi was very very helpful at the time and we arranged for an engineer to help with getting me working but all hell broke loose at my end as granddaughter caught COVID19 virus (she's Ok thank the lord) and I haven't returned to it since because life stopped for a good few weeks and now I'm playing catch up.
I'm pretty sure it will turn out to be something of nothing and I will get it working when I get back on it.

[Neale]

My ET6 arrived yesterday and I'm in the middle of doing a brain transplant on my control box. Wasn't easy removing the IP/M - who builds a DIN rail fitting box without access to the latch underneath? Anti-theft device? I had to remove the DIN rail to take the thing out. I have built a new mounting for the ET6 as it is a bare board rather than boxed item, but it looks as if the current wiring that went to the IP/M is going to fit the ET6 without major work. Shall report back when it's all working.

Now, there's confidence...

[JAZZCNC]

You just push against the din rail and the opposite side of the spring flips out of the din rail.

Are you using windows10 or 7.? If so did you have any trouble getting them to connect.? And is it stable.? I still havent got it to work with win10 and it's not stable on win 7.!!

[Neale]

You just push against the din rail and the opposite side of the spring flips out of the din rail.


Another statement of the bleeding obvious that I totally failed to see. Unfortunately, it wouldn't have worked for me due to the fact that I mounted the IP/M box and its terminal adaptors so close that I couldn't remove either of them as they were hard up against each other. Do you think that one day I shall learn from my own experience? Seems unlikely, though...

Haven't yet tried the thing as I don't have a spare 24V supply and if all else fails I can restore the IP/M without too much effort. Fingers crossed, another mug of strong coffee, and back to the wiring.

[JAZZCNC]

Unfortunately, it wouldn't have worked for me due to the fact that I mounted the IP/M box and its terminal adaptors so close that I couldn't remove either of them as they were hard up against each other. Do you think that one day I shall learn from my own experience?

Neale I'd like to say "YOU MUPPET" but that would be hypocritical of me because I've lost count of how many I've fitted and I still put the bloody terminal adaptors too close together trying to max out space and can't get the buggers off again...Lol

[Neale]

Clearly, I'm in good company, then!

But if you want another laugh - I bolted the ET6 in place, connected power and ethernet connections only so I could start on the config process. Plug into extension lead, turn on front panel switch. Nothing, Ah, internal MCB is off. Flick lever. Bang, flash, MCB tripped. Shout from wife in sitting room - "the power's gone off!". Interestingly, took out the 10A MCB in the cabinet, 32A MCB in the consumer unit, plus 100A RCD covering all house rings. 13A fuses in extension lead and cabinet mains lead still OK. Sums up my approach to fuses - they really are the last resort when all else has failed!

Cause was one of those little thing that could happen to anyone. After isolating cable between MCB and mains switch (which is after MCB), the cable was still shorted to earth. I had had to remove the nuts securing the mounting panel in the cabinet and on replacing one last night, I managed to catch the mains cable under it. The nut has a built-in shakeproof washer which comprehensively mashed the insulation.

Still, the board is now talking to my Win10 laptop first time, and I'm starting "ports and pins" configuration via the MyCNC user interface..

[JAZZCNC]

Still, the board is now talking to my Win10 laptop first time, and I'm starting "ports and pins" configuration via the MyCNC user interface..

Crazy that because I can't get it to do anything with my Win10 on a nice fast PC with a fresh install. It works on my Win7 setup Laptop which I set up every machine on and is a rock-solid setup with a high spec graphics card, i7 processor with loads of memory but it's flaky and crashes all the time.!!

This was just before Covid19 hit us and then my grandaughter caught it so I haven't looked at it since but I must get back onto it.

[Neale]

No idea what your problem is. All I can say is that I plugged it into the ethernet port, configured the laptop with a 192.168.0.address, and away it went. Can't say that I did anything clever that I can boast about! It's an ET6 rather than 7, of course, so might be slightly different firmware on the board? I think that I saw something about having to plug into a computer port rather than hub, presumably to avoid having to use a cross-over cable, but even if you are using a hub or switch, most of those are auto-switching these days anyway.

I have the limit switches configured and working, at least as far as the diagnostic LEDs going on and off as required. However, I've lost the printed copy of my IP/M manual where I noted down all the wire colours, connections, etc, which makes things slightly more difficult. Also trying to find out why the e-stop system isn't working. I have e-stop switches and fault outputs from the EM806 all in series with the safety relay so the relay trips in an emergency including driver fault. Can't get it to latch on now, so I suspect a wire has been dislodged somewhere but lost in the cable guide. However, the whole e-stop/relay stuff is independent of the controller - just switches a connection to the board's e-stop input - so the problem shouldn't be anything to do with the ET6.

Struggled a bit with motor configuration. There is a reference in the manual for the basic motor setup that says that speeds are units/sec (not units/min, like Mach3) but it's not defined for the "motor tuning" page. I've just set very conservative values as I would rather the motors creep than overspeed and trip the drivers.There is also a min, max, and "mid" speed to define - but I can't find an explanation of the "mid" speed. But I can't test any of that until I have the e-stop/safety relay working. E-stop handling in this software looks a bit more complicated than IP/M and Mach3 so that's going to need a bit of decoding as well.

I'll do a bit more reading tonight and have another go, fresh, in the morning. Wish me luck! I expect this will all be clear in time - I had similar issues first time round with the IP/M and Mach3.

[JAZZCNC]

No idea what your problem is. All I can say is that I plugged it into the ethernet port, configured the laptop with a 192.168.0.address, and away it went. Can't say that I did anything clever that I can boast about! It's an ET6 rather than 7, of course, so might be slightly different firmware on the board? I think that I saw something about having to plug into a computer port rather than hub, presumably to avoid having to use a cross-over cable, but even if you are using a hub or switch, most of those are auto-switching these days anyway.

No not connected through any switches or hubs etc, I never do. I've fitted 100's of ethernet controllers so it's not exactly my first rodeo battling with stubborn cards who don't want to talk to each other, so I did all the usual checks, cables, etc of which I've got dozens of various types, lengths, etc. However, this thing behaved oddly from the very first plug-in because it wouldn't show at all even when I pinged the board.
Only after I run some network trace software did it appear. To be honest I thought the IP on the board was wrong at first and was just about to dig into changing that when I spoke to Clive S who suggested running IP trace software and sure enough the IP trace found it. From then on it appeared when pinged and connected every time, very odd.?

The adapter and card connect ok and talk to each other no problems and the software loads up fine then it just closes the software.? Nothing I do can keep it from closing. This is all on Win10 with a fresh install and fully updated on a nice fast PC with SSD drive etc.!

The Win7 Laptop found it straight away stays connected, software loads, and stays loaded but it crashes randomly. All of this is with nothing connected to the board but an Ethernet cable and power.

I even tried to install it on a Linux PC that I have for Linux CNC but give up on that because Linux is complete F@#$ing mystery to me.!!

After all this, I was ready to smash the card into a billion pieces but I knew it was time to walk away. So I contacted Ivan at Puruvesi and he was great but nothing he suggested helped so we were going to arrange for an engineer to remote into my system but at the same time my grandaughter got sick which turned out to be Covid19 and all hell broke loose so not got back to it.
I'm sure when I do they will sort me out, or I'll put it in the 90ton press we are building and turn it into Tea coaster....:hysterical:


Watch this for the motor settings.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9xj4D-TQcU

[Neale]

Wouldn't dare try teaching granny to suck eggs! But sometimes talking through a problem with someone who doesn't really know what you are talking about kicks off that Eureka moment. Didn't realise that the problem wasn't basic network connection (although my software found the board without me doing any config apart from setting laptop IP address in the right subnet) but myCNC talking to it. Starts to sound a bit like a hardware/firmware problem at board level? I'm also using the latest download of myCNC but haven't (yet) seen anything like that.

I fixed my e-stop/safety relay problem last night (and I really don't like to admit publicly to official Muppet status, but really I should have checked that *all" the e-stop buttons weren't locked in...). I also remembered that I took the fault output from the drivers to the "servo fault" input on the IP/M so I need to check how to configure that on the ET6. I think it's on the "Alarms" config page. About 2am, I realised the answer to an associated problem which comes from a difference between IP/M and ET6. I had hoped that I would need minimal wiring changes (if any) in the swapover - same 24V signalling, differential outputs, etc. However, the IP/M exposes both ends of each opto-isolated input so you can choose how to connect on an input-by-input basis. The ET6 groups input into blocks of 4. Each opto input has back-to-back LEDs so they are polarity-insensitive but each group has one end of all LEDs tied together to go to + or gnd according to requirements. That's fine for the limit switches which is one block of four, but then I have e-stop input from relay, touchplate, and driver fault. My previous logic needed different connections for touchplate (shorts to ground, of course) and the other two switch to +24V. However, it's farily trivial to modify those so that I can use a group of inputs with the common end to +24V and switch to ground for the inputs. One little puzzle out of the way.

Would all have been a touch easier if I had not lost my printed copy of the IP/M manual where I had listed all connections, wire colours, etc. Never did have a proper wiring diagram, just a few sketches and did the rest off the top of my head. Both unreliable record-keeping mechanisms...

[Kitwn]

[QUOTE=Neale;117501]I fixed my e-stop/safety relay problem last night (and I really don't like to admit publicly to official Muppet status, but really I should have checked that *all" the e-stop buttons weren't locked in...)./QUOTE]

I call this 'Finger Trouble'. Often embarrassing, but they're the simplest faults to fix.

[Neale]

...and at least I went to bed having solved one problem! Even if I was the one who created it in the first place...

You learn from mistakes (although in my case, very slowly) but it's better to learn from other peoples'. Plenty of learning opportunities from me, then :smile:

[Neale]

Well, some small progress this afternoon. Just in from the workshop for a coffee and a think!

Machine is now moving; homing works fine after going through the homing macro creation business. Actually much more straightforward than you might think from the manuals as the macro wizard does most of the work for you. Need to sort out "units/sec or min" issue as everything moving much too slowly but I think I know what that is. However, there's a teensy weensy little problemette with the gantry squarring. I've currently configured things so that Z/Y/X home in that order and I run the gantry squaring macro as a separate function afterwards. The idea is that once all is tested, I shall have a single button that homes then squares in one user operation. Homing and squaring look fine (although not yet calibrated, the gantry movements look like it's doing what it should). However, after the squaring process, the A motor direction is inverted so that when you jog off the homed position, each end of the gantry moves in a different direction. E-stop/reset gets things back in order, but looks like a bit more work needed here!

E-stop signal from safety relay now being seen by the ET6 although I haven't gone through the e-stop macro/PLC yet to check what it's doing. Not sure how to trip a drive fault to check operation there - drive one axis into a hard stop? And can't test the touchplate or start getting tool length macros in place until I resolder the connection back to its pin on the external socket where it broke inside the heatshrink. That had me head-scratching for a while.

All good fun and no real show-stoppers yet. But there's a way to go yet...

[Neale]

...and a bit more progress to report. In case anyone's listening!

First job was to sort out machine speeds. The only reference to this that I had found in the manual was that you used "units/sec" in the equivalent of the "motor tuning" page. Oh no you don't! It's mm/min (as mine is configured to use mm). Once I sorted that, movement speed was fine.

Although the homing macros worked OK, the problem mentioned above (A motor direction reverses after squaring routine) was just a bit of a problem. Well, show-stopper in fact. However, I magicked it away by not selecting an option in the macro wizard about "reset work position after alignment". Partly because I realised that I didn't know what this did, and partly because it seemed to be generating a line in the macro that didn't make any sense. After unticking the box, the code worked fine - apart from the fact that it did not set the X machine coordinate to zero after the process completed. I tracked this down to another odd-looking line in the generated macro that called a function that I couldn't find in the manual, and given the parameters passed to it, I couldn't see what it was doing that was useful So I removed that line as well. In fact, whatever that line was supposed to do, it seemed to crash the macro at that point so the rest was being ignored, including the machine zero set. All now working fine, and my "home all" button runs through the Z/Y/gantry zero-and-square sequence very nicely. I shall be reporting these findings in the support forum and see what they say.

Then on to the spindle. Couldn't find how to specify which output pin to use for "spindle on" but I tracked down the one it was using by default and swapped wires to use that. Spent quite a bit of time trying to find how to set spindle parameters - there's so much that's configurable that it isn't always easy to find the appropriate config page - although once you find them, there's a lot you can do. Set min/max spindle speed, and somewhat to my surprise, the spindle starts and runs. Speed calibration wasn't that far out but I played with the calibration parameters enough to see that I can get it pretty close. Mach3 and the IP/M between them gave me speeds that were around 5% out which is perfectly acceptable but with a little bit of work I now have speeds within about 2% and can probably do better (reading speed from the VFD display which is probably fairly accurate as it's based on the supply frequency to the motor). Happy with where I am there.

Thought I'd then give the wireless MPG a go. The myCNC online docs tell you how to download a generic driver for the USB dongle, which I did. Turn on MPG, twiddle the dial, and the machine moved! That was quite a result as it wasn't entirely clear that my model MPG was supported. Went to the MPG config page - again, there's an awful lot that's configurable - and chose a "default" option that seems to most closely match my MPG button layout. What's particularly good about this config page is that there is a series of on-screen LEDs that show you which button has been pressed, and a table that lets you map button press to machine action. Things like spindle on/off and speed change from the pendant all work but I need to do a little bit more work here to sort out the rest. The MPG wheel works a bit differently to how it worked under Mach3. With Mach3, you had a choice of "step" or "continuous". There is a knob which selects step size (step mode, obviously) or speed (continuous). The step/cont button seems inoperative under myCNC, but the MPG wheel gives an approximation of "faster you turn, faster the machine moves", with slow speed giving single-step action. Step size switchable, of course, and the whole thing actually works better than under Mach3. In fact, it's all looking pretty good and I'm confident that once I have my tool-height setting macros in place (bit of development work needed there) I shall be able to assign them to my usual MPG buttons.

Pleased with how it's going so far. One of my biggest gripes is the difficulty of finding what you want in the online docs. Just about everything I've needed I have found eventually, but the search function seldom helps very much. For example, the docs on setting the gantry squaring is very comprehensive, but almost impossible to find.

[Clive S]

and a bit more progress to report. In case anyone's listening!


I'me listening :thumsup::beer:

[JAZZCNC]

Looking good Neale keep it coming..:encouragement:

[Neale]

Fixed my broken wire and the ET6 can now see the touchplate. I've also tracked down a sample macro showing touchplate use (it was under "surface mapping" which is why I had problems finding it) and I think I can use it as a basis for my touchplate macros. The router has movable and fixed touchplates and I use a set of three macros for simple touch-off, touch-off with secondary reference to fixed touchplate, and tool height setting from fixed touchplate. However, once you can figure out how to use probing/touch-off techniques for a particular machine, record fixed touchplate position, etc, actually putting the macros together is relatively easy.

I also mentioned problems with identifying output connections. There's a bit of inconsistency here, although there might be good reasons for it. Sometimes you go to a defined page to set particular input pins. For example, this is how limit switches are defined. Sometimes you define a sensor input pin when creating a macro, as for the homing macros. But for the motor output, the pin number is defined in a separate "pins.h" file (which will be familiar to any programmers out there) which is then "included" in various bits of PLC code. As I say, I can see why there might be reasons to do things this way but it makes it all a bit tricky for a newcomer to the system. (Edit - the contents of this file can be edited within the myCNC environment under "Hardware PLC templates" - again, the name didn't really help find it but it is all there).

At that point, I couldn't think of any more good reasons not to cut something, so I downloaded the myCNC postprocessor for Vectric (there's one for Fusion 360 plus a couple of other CAM packages that I don't use) and created a quick bit of Vcarve engraving. I just used a bit of scrap ply that was lying around but here's evidence that it's working! Well, I could be faking it but trust me, I'm a doctor!

28203

Image is slightly distorted but that's just camera angle.

Might take a little rest now before starting out on the tool height macros.

[Neale]

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

[JAZZCNC]

ok i'll sort it

[Neale]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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.

[Neale]

As Ivan says, it looks as if my problem - myCNC crashes on Windows 10 shortly after it starts - was due to a graphics driver problem. This, perhaps, makes me look even more silly than usual. I suspect that what happened is that I have been running Windows 10 on my workshop machine for a while, and I am pretty sure that I had installed the graphics driver from the nVidia web site. However, a couple of months ago I had problems with Win10 and reinstalled. Win10 appears to have a bundled graphics driver that works fine with my nVidia graphics card and I have not seen any problems with it - until myCNC was installed. Unlike most Windows software which uses DirectX graphics protocols, myCNC uses OpenGL. It seems possible that the default bundled Win10 graphics driver works fine with DirectX, and may even work to some extent with OpenGL, but does not fully support OpenGL. The debug software that the PV engineer ran on my machine showed that Windows driver did not properly respond to OpenGL requests, but as soon as I installed the full nVidia driver, all worked fine.

There is also a simple workaround to the "save configuration button is off the screen" problem. There is a "minimise window" button available within myCNC (not the Windows-supplied button in the top RH corner of the window "frame"). Click this to minimise, then click on the taskbar myCNC icon to maximise it and the window is back in the correct place. This is a temporary workaround as I am told that the engineers are working on a proper solution to this, as well as tidying up a few loose ends on the Windows version.

I am now happy to run myCNC on Windows. I do have a few more problems but those are pretty detailed issues around macro writing and I shan't bore people here (if you have even read this far) and I shall be asking questions on the PV support forum, which is the right place for them.

[JAZZCNC]

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! .

Hi Ivan,

I will be in touch soon as I'm getting no where with this and it's been tried on 4 PC's now. I've just seen the post about Open GL and Nvidia driver and I will check but I'm 99% sure on the Win PC I first tried and the one I want to use, it's using Nvidia driver because it opens their Nvidia software when want to make adjustments.
My win7 Laptop which is rock solid stable and the machine I use to setup every machine and controller on is 100% using the Nvidia driver the other 2 PC's I'm not sure about and would need to check.

[ivan-mycnc]

Hi Dean,

Absolutely, feel free to reach out to me through email, we'd be happy to connect to your computer and take a look at the problems with your myCNC installation. In general, I'd recommend making a list of things that are currently not working prior to us connecting to diagnose your machine - this may include screenshots, videos of the crashes, etc (especially since these problems appear on different PCs). Another engineer will be doing the remote diagnostics, so it will be helpful for him to have a step-by-step guide of things to take a look at.

Hopefully we can locate the source of your problem soon, so you can get back to actually using the controller.

[Ozemale6t9]

Hi Neale...I only stumbled upon this forum today, and am interested in how you have found the setup process so far?

I have a small bridge-type CNC which has a dead motion controller card, and although the manufacturer still exists, cannot get any response regarding purchase of their latest card. So I am left with the option of finding an alternative and am considering either the CSMIO-IP/A +expansions or MyCNC-ET15.

The CSLabs option has so many pros (price, appearance, setup), but with the ET15 I'd be able to add extra axis at a later time. I currently have 4 analog servos (X,Y,Z1,Z2), and 2 servo-spindles (also analog), but a rotary table or trunnion table would be nice to add at some point. Also, the extra I/O options would allow for a custom control panel, should I go down that path.

My concern is with the overall setup and also customisation of the GUI. I've been playing with customising MACH4 (offline) and it seems relatively easy to do, but with MyCNC it may as well be Chinese (I don't have a clue about xml).

For the record, both Mach4 and MyCNC are new to me, so there would be a learning curve either way. It's a question of how steep do I want that curve?

[Neale]

A few points to discuss there! First of all, although I did have some initial problems in getting the thing to work at all under Win10, it is now running OK (although there are one or two minor tweaks PV are making to the Windows version to make it fit a bit better with the way that windowing works on Win10 but nothing that affects functionality).

Physically - the CSMIO box I used (IP/M) is better packaged, DIN rail fitting, etc, while the PV boards are unprotected PCBs. However, I found the connections easy to make (once I had the thing bolted in place) and the removable connectors make that a bit easier than the rather fiddly connections on the IP/M - in my control box, anyway, where the IP/M was fairly deep into the box. Electrically it was virtually a wire-for-wire replacement for the IP/M, 24V signalling, differential outputs, etc, with the exception that the IP/M allows a choice of common +24V or common ground for each input and the ET6 groups them in fours. I had to change a couple of my inputs but it was easy to do, fortunately, and what I now have would have worked equally well with the IP/M (and I now wonder why I didn't do it that way to begin with).

Remember that I am using the ET6, the baby of the ET family, and use steppers, not servos, and especially not analogue servos. I am using a slave axis (X+A) and after a little bit of fiddling with homing macros (these need customising for each machine although the basics are done using built-in macro creation wizards) homing and gantry squaring work fine. If you are not using a slave axis (sounds like you are not) I suspect that the standard homing macros generated by the wizards would be fine. In your case, you could run the Z homing wizard twice, giving the appropriate parameters (home switch ID) each time, then the overall homing macro calls Z1, Z2, X, Y macros in order.

It has taken me some time to sort out tool-height setting macros and I'm not quite sure if I'm there yet (been using the machine and parked this problem for the time being) and the tool-change macro (for manual tool change, in a way that lets me set tool height as part of the process) is still a work in progress. I'll be testing my latest version later this morning as the current job needs it! It's not obvious how you set things like the G28 tool-change position but again, I guess that this is part of the learning process and I had to climb the same learning curve with Mach3.

It's probably taken me a bit longer to get the ET6 set up than it did with Mach3 - but then, with Mach3, I never did get automatic gantry squaring working. Swings and roundabouts.

I have looked at the way that screen layout is defined and it's something that I want to play with. In particular, myCNC has separate tab pages for gcode (showing code progress, rewind, things like that - stuff you tend to use or watch while running) and basic machine controls (particularly "home all"). I would like a custom page that has the bits I regularly use always available on the same page, and things used less often (like selecting gcode file, odd bits like that) on a second page. I don't think that this would be too difficult but I just haven't actively played with this yet. There is no GUI for screen design although I am reasonably familiar with XML so I'm not too worried about having to work at this level. Maybe this is another Linux-type philosophy that has carried over - real programmers edit text files, only wimps use GUIs:smile:

At the moment, I have just one reservation that I have not properly investigated. A recent job involved adaptive clearing (as per Fusion 360) in a small area that needed to leave a small number of projecting "pips". F360 generates a lot of short straight moves (we are talking a few thousand lines of gcode) to achieve this, and the cutting action seemed to generate more machine vibration than I have seen in the past. My impression was that the CV mode was not properly smoothing direction changes as it should. However, I might be being too sensitive and I cannot now remember how the Mach3/IP/M combination handled this. It's something that I need to look at (maybe need to tune CV parameters?) before I make any formal statements about it. It's a pity that there are not more users of this hardware/software to exchange experience yet.

Happy to answer any more questions - if I can from my limited experience to date.

Edit - I've checked the CV settings and rather as I suspected, either the default was silly or I changed it without noticing/thinking. The max angle that maintains CV action as opposed to stop/start was 1 degree - in other words, it was almost always using stop/start. I changed it to 45 deg and things are much smoother - there's a surprise! I'm not sure how much smoother the s-curve trajectory planning should make but it's all looking fine anyway.

[ivan-mycnc]

My concern is with the overall setup and also customisation of the GUI. I've been playing with customising MACH4 (offline) and it seems relatively easy to do, but with MyCNC it may as well be Chinese (I don't have a clue about xml).

Not sure if you've had a chance to read through this manual already, but our documentation website does go into quite some detail regarding .xml editing: http://docs.pv-automation.com/mycnc/mycnc_screen_configuration

[ivan-mycnc]

At the moment, I have just one reservation that I have not properly investigated. A recent job involved adaptive clearing (as per Fusion 360) in a small area that needed to leave a small number of projecting "pips". F360 generates a lot of short straight moves (we are talking a few thousand lines of gcode) to achieve this, and the cutting action seemed to generate more machine vibration than I have seen in the past. My impression was that the CV mode was not properly smoothing direction changes as it should. However, I might be being too sensitive and I cannot now remember how the Mach3/IP/M combination handled this. It's something that I need to look at (maybe need to tune CV parameters?) before I make any formal statements about it. It's a pity that there are not more users of this hardware/software to exchange experience yet.


Just wanted to chime in and say that in case it does turn out that myCNC produces some unwanted vibration, please do let us know, either through email or our forum. Our team does check this thread from time to time, but it will probably take us longer to actually see that you have a problem on here than via our own forum.

As for the problem itself, to start off you can try the Acceleration Override option in Settings > Motion. This is a new option that we added in one of our recent updates and it is currently undergoing testing. See if bringing the override value up helps lower the vibration.

28488

Additionally, you can send us an example of the G-code that's giving you trouble so that we can take a look at it on our end. We are currently working on improving the CV mode, however the focus at the moment is on 5 axes jewellery machines. If it turns out that there are any issues with Fusion360, we'll be sure to try and fix the behaviour ASAP.

[Neale]

Thanks for the comments, Ivan. In fact, as I mentioned in my edit at the bottom of my last post, I found that I had set the "break angle" for CV operation to 1deg, a silly number, and that was the cause of my problems. Fortunately, I have seen the effect of non-CV mode previously and was able to identify it fairly quickly - then it was just a matter of trying to find out how I had managed to disable it or what parameters neede adjusting. I have not had a chance to retry an adaptive clearing toolpath since then, but it is working fine with other, less demanding but still showing stop/start effects, toolpaths so I'm happy now.

[ivan-mycnc]

Thanks for the comments, Ivan. In fact, as I mentioned in my edit at the bottom of my last post, I found that I had set the "break angle" for CV operation to 1deg, a silly number, and that was the cause of my problems. Fortunately, I have seen the effect of non-CV mode previously and was able to identify it fairly quickly - then it was just a matter of trying to find out how I had managed to disable it or what parameters neede adjusting. I have not had a chance to retry an adaptive clearing toolpath since then, but it is working fine with other, less demanding but still showing stop/start effects, toolpaths so I'm happy now.

Completely missed your edit! Glad to hear the cause of the problem has been located.