To CNC or not

Ozzie34231 raises a good point about Mach3 vs 4.

In my case, I stayed away from Mach4 because I was using the parallel port and liked that. Around May of last year, I switched to a Warp9 Ethernet Smooth Stepper so that I can run three CNC machines off one ESS, and the ESS is Mach 4's preferred way of working. I should go remind myself of what Mach 4 gives me that 3 doesn't do and grab a copy.
 
Hey Bob,
Just saw your post and signature tag. When you grab that copy of Mach 4 take a look at the Lathe program and the built in Lathe cycles. You'll be converting one of those lathes pronto. I'm running it on my self converted 1440; love it.
I'm in Sarasota and been in CNC since about 2002
 
ozzie34231 said:
Guys, this is 2018 and you're talking Mach 3. Mach 4, a copy of their Mill Wizards, and Fusion 360, (free for hobby or small business), is a 2018 way to go. You don't need to ever learn a bit of G-code.
My recommendation is to download a trial copy of Mill Wizards and it very soon reveals what you can do without knowing G-code, or having a Cad/Cam program..
You can also download a trial copy of Mach 4 to see what it is about.
You can download Fusion 360, but that will take a little time to learn. There are however, many, many Youtube videos to help you learn.
The comments about a big machine accuracy vs CNC are silly. If you're talking a knee mill vs a tabletop CNC, yes the knee is more accurate. But the fact is that CNC can be more accurate than manual comparing like size machines.
I have a knee mill built in the 1970s running Mach4 and it can machine to .0001" accuracy, and then with a probing sequence measure the work. If it had handles, I'm not sure I'd know how to use them.
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LOL. Ok. An overly simplistic approach, but it may well be true for some people. Just remember there is no such thing as a free lunch and Autocad has a past reputation for being a mercenary company. Fusion does not do simple 2D layouts easily. If it did I would probably use it more. It does do 3D fairly nicely though. You trade off by having to do more time modeling. I routinely use 2d layouts in combination with 3D models. Why model a groove when you can just engrave a line. I get it. You think you have it all dialed in and the rest of us are uninformed, but the fact is I am fairly familiar with Fusion360. Its great for 3D adaptive clearing.

Mach 3 works, and since I have 4 PAID licenses and they work just fine on modern PCs there is no reason go buy new licenses to run the same machines. LOL. All are running ESS. Sure I could make a donation to ArtSoft, but I have no need to. Some might argue that Mach4 is "better" but you have to use it on better computers as well. I can easily run a million lines of code in Mach 3 on those same better machines. I do it regularly. I have heard Mach3 has a 3 million line limit. I haven't hit that yet. 2.3 million lines of code in a single file is the largest I have run so far. When I run into that limit then it might be time to upgrade a machine to Mach 4. More than likely I will have more machines by then, and at that time I'll decide what licenses to buy for them. (My big mill is still running on a single processor W98 box. LOL.)

As to not needing to learn any code. Well, maaaaybe not, but it doesn't hurt. I actually did some of my first molds by hand coding by swapping the working plane and cutting progressively deeper arcs in X & Z. It was quite a learning process. By having learned that I've been able to stop a machine, and make a code change on the spot with Notepad to fix a simple oversight instead of going back to the design computer and re-rendering the entire file. No I didn't "need" to know code, but it sure saved me a lot of time.

My approach isn't for everybody either. But I recognize that people want to use the tools they have. Not always have to buy a new tool for every job.
 
ozzie34231 said:
Guys, this is 2018 and you're talking Mach 3. Mach 4, a copy of their Mill Wizards, and Fusion 360, (free for hobby or small business), is a 2018 way to go. You don't need to ever learn a bit of G-code.
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Mach 3 still works, if you must go that way choose a version before the current set of incompetents started filling with it for best functionality, the crew who bought Newfangled Solutions really suck.
Mach 4 was developed so slowly and advertised so far in advance of adequate functionality that it's a Busted Flush, it needs a separate motion controller and stand alone offline controllers are now available at reasonably similar costs, you'd be a mug to go Mach 4 at this point.
 
magicniner said:
Mach 3 still works, if you must go that way choose a version before the current set of incompetents started filling with it for best functionality, the crew who bought Newfangled Solutions really suck.
Mach 4 was developed so slowly and advertised so far in advance of adequate functionality that it's a Busted Flush, it needs a separate motion controller and stand alone offline controllers are now available at reasonably similar costs, you'd be a mug to go Mach 4 at this point.
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As much as I am a fan of alternatives I'd need to KNOW it supports a full Fanuc instruction set with all parameters, doesn't have any odd things it doesn't support like FlashCut, and will handle a couple million lines of code without bogging out. Last I checked I could still buy a license for Mach 3 for 150-175 and the "hobby" verison of Mach 4 was only 200. I checked the hobby version is also ok for a pro shop. An external motion controller like the ESS is a good thing. Its what saved Mach 3 in my opinion.
 
Bob La Londe said:
As to not needing to learn any code. Well, maaaaybe not, but it doesn't hurt.
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You don't need to learn G Code to start making parts but it you should pick it up as you go along, and this is a big help -

http://www.eng-serve.com/cnc/gcode_comment.html

I think the point we who say you don't need to learn it is that with adequate CAM you don't need to learn it first, there are dyed-in-the-wool hand coders on the model engineering sites that promote the view that you do, and that puts a lot people off as well as not being so ;-)
 
magicniner said:
You don't need to learn G Code to start making parts but it you should pick it up as you go along, and this is a big help -

http://www.eng-serve.com/cnc/gcode_comment.html

I think the point we who say you don't need to learn it is that with adequate CAM you don't need to learn it first, there are dyed-in-the-wool hand coders on the model engineering sites that promote the view that you do, and that puts a lot people off as well as not being so ;-)
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If read in context I didn't say you HAVE TO learn to hand code, and I don't need to take that point of view to put people off. I' can do it all on my own.

magicniner said:
So Mach 3 is 100% Fanuc compatible ?
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I don't know for sure but its close. Better than some other stuff out there. Several old referrences I've run across while I was still behind the learning curve said if your CAM software didn't have a Mach 3 post to try a Fanuc post. I did and I don't recall any particular problems. The thing is even if that were a completely true statement you might have difference from one machine to the next because either Mach or the Post processor (or both) might need to be modified to deal with that particular set of hardware. Also Mach itself can be set in different modes for some things in simple software switch settings. You need to make sure your CAM software matches up with that or tells Mach what its giving it.
 
It's nice to know G-code, but you can get started cutting without knowing all about it.

I resisted switching to Mach 4 for a long time even though I bought at the first offering because they were offering a commercial license with it. What got me to actually install and use it was the advent of Pokeys57cnc motion controller which offered dead accurate lathe threading via an encoder. And the price was right.
As for its mill use; Mach3 always gave me trouble when pausing or doing "start from here".
If Mach 3 is working for you, no need to change, but I wouldn't recommend a new user go out and buy it.
 
ozzie34231 said:
Hey Bob,
Just saw your post and signature tag. When you grab that copy of Mach 4 take a look at the Lathe program and the built in Lathe cycles. You'll be converting one of those lathes pronto. I'm running it on my self converted 1440; love it.
I'm in Sarasota and been in CNC since about 2002
Click to expand...

I have one Sherline lathe that I converted to CNC. I haven't really done anything useful with it, yet, but that's more dependent on what I'm building in the shop.
 
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