Controller Comparison

[Chaz]

Chaz,

Now you have been using Acorn a while any advice / feedback on it's setting up and use, I am interested how you find it as I have just ordered one.
I have an Orac cnc lathe that I want to convert to use with the Acorn.

Phill

Hi Phill,

Ive not done a lot with it as yet as Ive had to solve some other issues.

The platform is good and stable. Inherently more so than Mach which solves many issues. Support however is good and its based on a known established 'standard'.

I needed to forget about Mach as you cannot always apply the same thinking (steps / mm etc). Its a different approach, but certainly not impossible. Ive done a lathe, Ill do my next machine with Acorn too and perhaps one day convert my Thor, but Ive invested heavily and the wiring / servos only work on CS Labs.

One thing, get a decent PC for Acorn. They recommend following a certain spec with Win 10. I had other machines (spec was too low) and I had a spindle issue. We couldnt point it to the low spec machines, but could be.

Ive managed to get my ATC to work, took some effort.

The PLC is powerful but you need to understand their code and/or get help.

Depending on how complex you need to do, it can handle it. Its a pity its only 4 axis and certainly more inputs / outputs would be nice but things can be done via their PLC logic.

I bought on a Sunday night, received Wednesday. You will be nailed import cost but its not bad in reality (they did a recent price drop when they sold 1000 units).

Certainly recommended. The touchscreen implementation is great, so expect to need one of them too.

Chaz