Hello Lovely CNC People

[JAZZCNC]

Hi Ben

I thought Mach3 was a type of controller and since you can post process for UCCNC in F360 I didn't understand it's inclusion in the chain.

Could you explain further? I seem to be misunderstanding what Mach3 is or how it can function.

Hi Archy,

Maybe I can explain it a little clearer. Mach3 and UCCNC are both control software and do exactly the same job which is taking the G-code you create in F360 and translate this into motion at the machine along with other tasks like starting/stopping the spindle, monitoring limits, E-stop, etc along with other tasks.

Now, mach3 has been around a very long time and many CAM packages have post processors which are written for it. However, mach3 is now a bit of a dinosaur and unsupported by the software company who make it, they released mach4 about 3yrs ago but it's terrible software and full of bugs.

This next bit gets a little technical and deep but I'll try to keep it brief but still bare with me all will become clear.!!
When mach3 was first released over 25yrs ago the only real and affordable way to control a machine at the hobby level was using the parallel port (PP) of a PC as the motion control device.
But as the times moved on and PCs got faster and electronics cheaper the PP which was relatively limited in the frequency it could output , which in turn limited the speed and smoothness of the machine it started to be replaced or bypassed with external motion control devices. This was basically a much faster external to the PC "box of tricks" which transformed the machine and was supplied by various hardware companies.

Now in order for mach3 to talk these box of tricks from various suppliers, each manufacture had to supply a piece of software called a "plug-in". However, this could and often did prove troublesome because with each version or update of mach3 it could easily cause incompatibility issues with the plug-in which made the "box of tricks" useless because mach3 would no longer talk to it so then the box of tricks manufacturer would have to update the plug-in and on it went. As you can imagine this quickly become a nightmare for the box of tricks manufacturers.
The company CNCDRIVE that designed UCCNC where one of the companies that made the box of tricks for mach3 and they decided they had enough of this constant crippling and rewriting plug-ins and decided to write their own software so UCCNC was born. However, they didn't want to abandon all customers who bought their "box of tricks" so they made them capable of using both Mach3 OR UCCNC which is why any code that was written or post-processed for mach3 will work with UCCNC.

Now, Mach3 is no longer supported and hasn't been for many years and because UCCNC is still supported and produced by the "box of tricks" manufacturer it has developed into a far superior piece of software to Mach3 or even its replacement mach4, which by the way is dreadful software that is full of bugs best avoided.
This combination of UCCNC and "box of tricks" is what I now fit on all my machines and why Ben is using a Mach3 post-processor in F360.

[dazp1976]

^^^
What Jazz said.
I'm making the switch to uccnc also.
I have both mach3 and uccnc.
Now, where mach3 is concerned I have only had great successs with it using winXP. Had various glitches with win7. Mach is so old that I'd say it was designed for xp. Any other o.s. can be problematic and not many folk will have xp available.

I'm switching to uccnc mainly because I need more I/O and a higher kernel frequency, this is where Mach falls down for me as parallel has it's limitations. I've avoided using usb (recommended!!) and gone straight up to an ethernet controller instead. I'm still using mach with my uc300eth controller until I get fully familiar with uccnc.

Furthermore, I can hopefully save some power and run it off a laptop.

[Archy]

BTW I ended up buying a JazzCNC machine and am very happy with it. Jez is good at trouble shooting and they have helped me solve any problem that has arisen.
I wouldn't have been able to get into CNC machining without their help, which goes to show, it's not just the machine you buy but the people you buy it from.

I'm about to purchase a laser cutter and I'm looking at the used market, but what if that goes wrong; who will I call?

A CNC or laser cutter that you can't use, might as well not be there at all.

Schrödinger's laser cutter.