Poorly N sick Fadal 15 VMC Will live again!

[Jonathan]

One thing to be aware off with the Chinese controllers, is the often quoted 'headline' price has limited axis interpolation.

When I was looking a few years ago, the standard price often only included 2.5/3 axis interpolation, if you wanted true 4 axis interpolation, you had to pay quite a bit more for it.

To me, this is the sort of thing that makes LinuxCNC more persuasive - the unforeseen features and functions a dedicated controller may lack. You'll have to learn how to set up either option, so better the one which leads to more options?

I like how they advertise the microcontroller:

"32-bit high performance low power industrial grade microprocessor, 400MHz CPU speed"

That's a $10 part:

https://www.digikey.com/products/en?...H743ZIT6&v=497

... but still appropriate. The issue is more that you're presumably locked into only whatever the existing firmware can do. If their customer service is good though it might be a good system.

[m_c]

To me, this is the sort of thing that makes LinuxCNC more persuasive - the unforeseen features and functions a dedicated controller may lack. You'll have to learn how to set up either option, so better the one which leads to more options?

I like how they advertise the microcontroller:

"32-bit high performance low power industrial grade microprocessor, 400MHz CPU speed"

That's a $10 part:

https://www.digikey.com/products/en?...H743ZIT6&v=497

... but still appropriate. The issue is more that you're presumably locked into only whatever the existing firmware can do. If their customer service is good though it might be a good system.

A key thing to remember, is there are probably tens of thousands of these controllers in use in China, so any bugs are likely to have been dealt with.

The big issue is getting support in English, as having seen a couple of the manuals, they are very much in classic Chinglish with lots of questionable translations.
I'd be happy to try one in a pretty basic machine, however I'm not sure I'd be confident to install one on a machine with anything needing some custom programming/setup.