Connecting to a CNC machine, pros and cons of USB vs PP vs Ethernet etc.

[Jon.]

Well Jess, now we know you . You have well presented yourself here. I am half expecting soon to hear that RP is better than ball screw and that HD alu profile gantry is stronger than steel one..

What sort of steel are you talking about here? Heat treated stress relieved steel.. by far much stronger. Mild steel simply welded up and painted that will change shape over the years then going on its working life span, Aluminum will retain shape and last longer if built well. Hense why production machines always use heat treated steel or aluminum, but you still see people forking out thousands building machines from mild steel obviously going off your assumption, knowing one day they might wake up to find their machine is jammed.

[Boyan Silyavski]

What sort of steel are you talking about here? Heat treated stress relieved steel.. by far much stronger. Mild steel simply welded up and painted that will change shape over the years then going on its working life span, Aluminum will retain shape and last longer if built well. Hense why production machines always use heat treated steel or aluminum, but you still see people forking out thousands building machines from mild steel obviously going off your assumption, knowing one day they might wake up to find their machine is jammed.

I will reply in you build thread, cause I see you took that personally. I am also making machines from aluminum just right now.

[Robin Hewitt]

I had experience of USB a few years back and it was not good, in fact I think the whole USB thing is a scam. The idea was good, every USB device had it's own unique ID number, you plugged it in , the computer asked, "What are you", it replied. "I am a 12345B". The computer searches itself for the driver named "12345B" and runs it. If it cannot find 12345B it asks you where it should look.

The unique ID numbers are free, but, you have to join the USB club before they can be given to you and joining the club is hideously expensive.

To get around that manufacturers used a loophole, instead of coming up and saying, "I am a Model J CNC Controller from Choppit Ltd" they come up and say, "I am a Windows device, usually a serial port or a disk drive". The Choppit CNC control software then has to rummage among the available ports and drives looking for it's controller.

USB does not usually shine because for CNC it is fettered by all sorts of 3rd party software impersonating other things. There was a company called something like "Metrologie" who joined the club and sold their unique ID's at around 10 for £120. They got stomped on PDQ but cheap ID's are still out there if you look

[Jon.]

lol.. you what?? so you went on to get ethernet from the tackle shop yeah?

[m_c]

What sort of steel are you talking about here? Heat treated stress relieved steel.. by far much stronger. Mild steel simply welded up and painted that will change shape over the years then going on its working life span, Aluminum will retain shape and last longer if built well. Hense why production machines always use heat treated steel or aluminum, but you still see people forking out thousands building machines from mild steel obviously going off your assumption, knowing one day they might wake up to find their machine is jammed.

Jon, you do realise silyavski was taking the michael?
Although I'm not sure about ballscrews being better than RP...

[Jon.]

He might have been but he had just made a patronizing comment about heavy aluminum on a thread of mine seconds before he wrote that one.

[m_c]

He might have been but he had just made a patronizing comment about heavy aluminum on a thread of mine seconds before he wrote that one.

I don't see anything patronizing about his comments. There is a bit of misunderstanding due to Silyavski's English, but both his suggestions were valid given the information provided before those posts.

[Boyan Silyavski]

Jon,
it was a suggestion, not patronizing. I saw the need to say to you about strengthening the gantry at glance. But plus that, i spend 2 hours at least thinking about your problem, your machine strength and making calculations, comparing your alu profile data and transferring that data to find the comparative steel profile, then i started calculating deflection and so on...

If you feel i am not right, just ignore what i said, anyway its not an attack or anything personal