motion control - advice please

[opentoideas]

so as I begin my journey into CNC I am working through many ups and downs....

I now have both a lathe and mill however I also struck a PC disaster with the mill.

Lathe is a Denford Starturn 8 unconverted running Denford DOS software - likely upgrade in the near future

Mill is a Denford Triac already converted to Mach3 with a dual parallel port connection to XP PC.

having got the Mill up and running almost immediately the PC died on me so I am looking for options

I have a Panasonic toughbook that I intent to be dedicated to CNC and a licenced copy of Mach3 on it

it seems pointless if not impossible to try to add parallel ports to the laptop

as I have detail of the parallel pinouts for the mill and a working machine profile in Mach3 it seems like this should be a fairly simple task - or that's my theory anyway..... time will tell

as both machines use the same electronics I was planning to use the conversion on the mill as a template to convert the lathe which should make that process easier when the time comes.

but given the old PC has died on me it looks like I need to move up the process of adding a motion controller to the mill rather than just using it as is.

looking around the UC300ETH seems like a good card for my purposes and has a Mach3 plugin as well as the option to use UCCNC which many seem to like.

I also find myself having the crazy thought that given the number of inputs, outputs and axis on the UC300 could I connect both machines with different machine profiles for each? I don't see myself with any need to run both machines together so while this is a bit of a mad idea it may not be impossible.

any advice for a newb? any other or better options?

[dazp1976]

The UC300eth is a cracking controller.
If you only need 2* p-port connections you could also go the UC400eth route.

[opentoideas]

ahh nice I hadn't seen the UC400eth thank you

given UCCNC licencing is per controller I would be interested to know if my thoughts of one controller for both machines would even be possible though I understand that UCCNC does not yet have a turn component so I will be continuing with Mach3 for now and I have read mixed reports about both Mach3 turn and Mach3 compatibility with the UC300

it is a daunting subject that's for sure!

[opentoideas]

just to clarify my crazy thought since the UC300eth has 6 axis and a ton of IO in theory this is plenty to set up 3 axis for the mill plus IO and 2 axis for the lathe plus IO

my thinking is then I can set up separate machine profiles in Mach and either use one or the other.

while I cant think of any reason this shouldn't work its certainly not a standard use case that the manufacturer will have considered so I wouldn't be surprised if it wont work that way but its an interesting thought and given the small price difference between the UC300 and UC400 might be worth trying

[Clive S]

I think Dean (Jazzcnc) www.jazzcnc.co.uk

might have those controllers disclaimer I have never used one.

[opentoideas]

Thanks Clive, Dean is a likely supplier if I do go for the UC300 hopefully he will spot this and comment as from reading this forum he has a wealth of knowledge and his posts have been a huge help getting me where I am with this.

Tomorrow is a day of testing as although the PC has died I want to be certain it wasn't a result of something going wrong in the machine and sending a death ray back through the parallel ports. first check is voltages on all pins then manually introducing signals to test all the axis function correctly. as long as this all tests ok then hopefully adding the motion control will be a fairly straightforward process.

while I am fairly sure the PC's death is just bad luck I want to be sure before adding anything new just in case

[opentoideas]

So testing seems ok. All the axis work although i seem to have a 15vac on 4 pins that i need to track down as it may just be an induced voltace in the lines but its a concern ��

[tonyfoale]

Another option would be to use GRBL on an Arduino or better an ESP32 then you can send Gcode down a USB cable. GRBL ingests G code and spews out pulse and direction pulses to a motor driver. It lives happily on modern computers.

[opentoideas]

Something to look at. I am familiar with esp32 as i use them for home automation but not seen much about grbl. Will have a look

[opentoideas]

so I have been considering Deans package of the UC300ETH and UCBB1 but then realising that I would need a second breakout I started further reading and found the UB1 from cncroom.com and it looks far better suited for what I am thinking...... but would probably also need the UD1-U good grief it gets expensive fast lol

I know Dean is really busy but he was kind enough to send a fast response to my email and is out of stock on the UC300 for now.

I wonder if I am over thinking things. while isolating all the connections through the breakout is a good idea is it really needed with the ethernet connection? I find myself wondering at the sense in protecting a motion controller with a breakout board that costs more than the motion controller.

one of the joys of being in the UK is nothing is easily available so far to much time to contemplate options especially as i want the mill back up and running yesterday.

on with the research...

[JohnHaine]

GRBL is a very interesting program which is "logically" similar to a USB motion controller - you send it Gcode and it generates pulses and feeds back a load of control info for example the current axes positions, status etc. Works on basic Arduino but can work better on higher spec versions. There's also something optimised for lathes. I use grbl for driving my big mill's X axis and a rotary axis though I use Mach3 on a dedicated smaller CNC mill. There are limitations, I don't think all gcodes are supported, and last time I looked I don't think backlash compensation is either.

The snag with grbl is that it needs a front end to provide a UI, load and stream gcode and all the stuff that we are familiar with from Mach 3/4. It would be great if there was a Mach plugin for grbl but since the latter is open source maybe NFS don't want to open their API spec. There are various front ends - I use something called grbl controller that runs on my phone with a Bluetooth connection but it's very basic though I can jog the machine and run gcode programs. There are others but to me they looked more like programmers' ideas of CNC rather than machinists' - I may be doing them a disservice.

[opentoideas]

ok so think the time has come....

GRBL looks like a cheap option but if I am going to start playing around with arduino or ESP then LinuxCNC would seem like the better option and Mesa controllers are an interesting option comparing cost of controllers and isolated breakout boards the Mesa cards are similar in cost.

I am currently downloading the LinuxCNC live iso and will spend today having a look at how much fun its going to be....

I don't know how this will go and looking at the LinuxCNC forum and WIKI I am not confident but its only fair to give it a go.

wish me luck lol

[dazp1976]

Getting the Mesa you want in the UK will probably be tricky or end up with a heafty import charge.
See how you get on with Linux, you want to be really sure it's for you before committing. I'd want the 7I80HD I believe.

I must sdmit, I have not tried using Mach3 turn with my UC300eth. I use the ucbb with mine on ports 1&2 for all the axis signalling.
Now, for the input ports however. I use these for signalling:
https://m.aliexpress.com/item/4000386156984.html?
My controls use 24v for relays, sensors, servo, etc.
A 24vin>5vout, 24 channel, npn, plugged in to the inputs on ports 4&5.
You can also opt for a 5vin>24vout 8 channel version to use on the outputs of ports 4&5 if wanted.
There are plenty of different types of these plc boards around fairly cheap.
I'm saving port3 for a high speed version later on.

[opentoideas]

More great info - thank you

well I have the LinuxCNC CD burned and been into the live version to check latency which seems ok. time to swap HDD and do an install and see how it works....

as I have both a lathe and mill to control UCCNC not having a turn component is a bit of a showstopper for me. I know its in the works but I also appreciate there is no timeline and it may never happen so for now it looks like Mach3 or LinuxCNC are the options - I would rather spend the time familiarising on a single control option rather than using 2 different ones as the potential for human error switching between them is high - its easy to forget lol

while I like the comfy Windows environment its not like this PC will be doing anything other than machine control so Linux may not be so bad...

getting any motion control in the UK seems to be difficult and while I have licenced Mach3 it came with the mill so its not like I have invested in it and I have to learn it as well.

I probably have a few weeks of messing around to figure things out before I make the purchase so any and all feedback is great. so many options!

[opentoideas]

Lol ok i forgot how much fun Linux can be...


All day and while i have installed many versions i still cant even get a wifi to connect.

3 usb adapters and a cardbus and rhe cardbus came closest but still wont connect.

If i cant even get wifi to work what hope is there for machine control lmao

[JohnHaine]

I have a lathe and mill running with two mach3 profiles on the same Win10 PC, both driven by UC100 controllers over usb. Try cnc4you.co.uk for cncdrive stuff in the UK.

[opentoideas]

Hi John, thank you for that.

1 PC to many machines Is common and works fine. what I am considering is

1 PC - 1 motion controller - 2 machines

I am sure that I have read about somebody doing this with parallel port switchboxes but I think with the UC300ETH there are plenty of connections to do this without any extra switching.

here lies the next problem cnc4you don't sell the UC300 only the 100 and 400

Jazzycnc sell it but only as a kit with the UCBB which adds a lot to the cost he also is out of stock or I would have bought one already lol

StoneyCNC sell it but postage and duty fees add to it a lot

though in fairness I really don't like that cnc4you prices are ex-VAT which should get them a slap these days as there is nothing to indicate that until the end of the checkout process which puts them at a similar cost Stoney even with the high delivery!

I have a new wifi dongle arriving today to continue my investigations into LinuxCNC but if it continues like this its not going to be an option..... anyone know if the UC cards could be used with LinuxCNC? I doubt it but I don't know how much use paying with Linux offline will be. I think I really need to try to configure the machine in it but I wont be buying hardware without testing so catch 22

[dazp1976]

I have a lathe and mill running with two mach3 profiles on the same Win10 PC, both driven by UC100 controllers over usb. Try cnc4you.co.uk for cncdrive stuff in the UK.

They only carry the UC100 and UC400eth.

I went direct to cncdrive. Cost me a bit to import but... If you catch it when there's an offer on, and you want to get a fair few bits n bobs. It's worth the extra to get what you want.
If I did it again I'd get the UC300/UB1 from cncroom and then some cheap isolation units frim ChinChin for ports 4&5.

Play with all the software types first, see what you like, go from there.

[m_c]

Personally, I'd fit two separate controllers.
The complexity of having two machines wired into the same controller is just a headache waiting to happen.


As somebody who has retrofitted lathes and a milling machine, controller choice is more limited.
Last figures I seen, turn applications made up less than 10% of total user base, and I'd hazard to guess that has shrunk even further since I seen that figure, so it's not a high priority for developers.


If you really want to keep the same software for both, you're probably looking at Mach 3 or 4, LinuxCNC, Dynomotion KMotionCNC, or Centroid (there may be more, but those are the ones I know will support turning).



However my recommendation for a lathe now, is to go for a standalone Chinese controller, unless you really need conversational programming.
For a couple hundred pound, you can get a pretty good controller, without the expense of a PC/motion controller.

Milling machine, it's very much user preference.
I'd personally avoid the standalone Chinese controllers, as they are pretty limited memory wise (milling programs can run to many MBs - lathes you're lucky if you get to 10s of KBs, so can quickly run out of memory).
Again I'd consider if you need conversational. Conversational is good if you want to do a quick job like drill some holes, mill something flat, but if you're doing anything more complex, I find it far easier to just design the part in CAD/CAM.
Not having conversational, also opens up a lot more options for controllers/software.

[hanermo2]

Most of the posts are shooting past the target, ime ..

It is very very complex to have an actual usable cnc controller ..
and they all have lots of shortcomings independent of cost.
The errors vary with mill and lathe.

Endless issues with front back toolposts, metric-inch, offsets here and there, macros ..
Lathe threading properly is very very difficult.
After about 2000 hours of work and use and 8000 in kit .. and 4 different solutions discarded as not working ...
(stepperworld-kit drivers-gecko 201s, 203s, 320s, and pp, warp9 ss, centipede, cslabs (using))

The chinese cheap controllers seem to work quite well for mill stuff and for routers.

[Dazi]

I use a HP probook i think its a G1 or 2 it has a slot on the bottom for a docking station which has a printer port its permanently connected to my machines and i just drop the laptop on it and all connected including mouse and charger works great with mach3 i just have to make sure wifi is turned off when using the machine it don't like it. just throwing this out if someone looking for the same connection.