Your thoughts on the AR1200 from Machinery & Electrical

**cropwell** · 13-07-2014

I have to ask JAZZ why he lumps low-spec and parallel port together. I know I only have a hobby machine from MD and I am vastly dissatisfied with it, but parallel port works OK within the (low) capabilities of my current machine - that is if the PCF07343 controller they used hadn't gone on the fritz. Is there some magic with usb motion controllers that makes something great happen ?

BTW the MD company motto is "UNUM NATUS PERPARVIS" which translates as - one born .......

**george uk** · 13-07-2014

Hi
I will post up this list when i put my pc on later tonight. On my phone at the mo. and i do think that one is doable for around 2k. But only if you have some experience and the right tools.

Re industrial cnc

Have looked at lots of theze over the past year. Like the otheres say. Most of them need the brains replacing . Although if you take the time to learn how they operate. They can be good. Its size that would be your problem for the cheeper industrial cncs are usualy massive. And waigh tons,

I see on bidspotter a few weeks ago a wadkin cnc that was reletivly small moving table fix head design would have fitted at the back.

But. There are some great cncs self built on here. Jonathons is a great example. Pluss many many more And would probebly fit your needs perfectly. For the budget you have. Maybe look at pricing up getting the bits made that you can not do. And do the rest of the build yourself.

**Franco** · 14-07-2014

Hi george, I look forward to the list, thanks!

Yeah an industrial machine isn't really going to be an option at the moment. I would love to build one but I simply don't have the time and most of the tooling required to make one. I have a full time job as well as working most evenings/weekends for people and I also have a long list of projects I need to finish for myself so at the moment I can't afford to invest a lot of time into making one which is why I'm willing to pay a premium for my first machine to get me up and running.

**gavztheouch** · 14-07-2014

I looked into buying one of these AR machine about a year ago, I have never seen one in the flesh but I though it looked like a lot of machine for the money. A simple design using decent components, the only stand out issue is the single ballscrew to move the gantry, that was alway a consern in my mind.

It just looks like a well made diy machine and something you could prob improve upon over time if need be. Worth a look, in fact if you phone them up they have customers around the country who are willing to show their machine to potential customers.

**JAZZCNC** · 14-07-2014

Originally Posted by cropwell

I have to ask JAZZ why he lumps low-spec and parallel port together. I know I only have a hobby machine from MD and I am vastly dissatisfied with it, but parallel port works OK within the (low) capabilities of my current machine - that is if the PCF07343 controller they used hadn't gone on the fritz. Is there some magic with usb motion controllers that makes something great happen ?

Well no one with any sense would go to the expense of buying a motion control card and running nasty cheap drives or Breakout board with them.! Equaly no one would buy servo's and run them with a parallel port at 25Khz.

The parallel port does work ok within reason. But when you get to wanting higher feed rates with higher resolution to give smoother motion then it starts to struggle. 25Khz just isn't fast enough and increasing the Kernal speed to gain extra pulses is increasing the chances for error and putting strain on the already much tweaked parallel port driver. This can lead to miss steps and allsorts of weird shit happenings.!!

I realise looking at the surface it appears Motion control cards are expensive luxury's but after you have experienced the difference you never will go back to the parallel port. The difference when matched to decent BOB and drives is night and day to parallel port, Motors run smoother, performance increases and missed steps etc when pushed hard become a thing of the past. PC and Mach's workload is greatly reduced as the Motion control card now does all the number crunching, this reduces chances of Mach3 locking up which is common when pushing the Kernal speed up and high feed rates.
Gone are the restrictions on which PC is suitable and how good the Paralle port is or needs to be.! Now you can use lower spec PC Even Laptops and run them thru a network if you like when using Ethernet(wouldn't advise it thou) Plus you can safely locate the PC and control further away from machine without worrying about cable length dropping signals.!
Usb motion control cards perform just as good but they still have some cable length restrictions and some can be affected by noise more(IE: Usb Smooth stepper)

So lower spec and parallel port do go together as you wouldn't go High spec on everything else and still run Parallel port. It would be like buying a ferrari and only using half it's gears.! . . . . . . Equally you wouldn't buy a ferrari Engine and put it in a low spec Lada and expect it to beat a Porche.!

**EddyCurrent** · 14-07-2014

Adding to what gavztheouch said, I've just realised I also contacted them before building myself and they were very willing to customize the machine for me such that if you wanted two ballscrews on X then that could be done, also if you want particular drivers etc. they would also do that. I would suggest giving them a call.

**Franco** · 10-08-2014

Thanks for the advice all. After giving it some thought it looks like a DIY build might actually be my best option after all. It's time for some serious research!