Should I give up on Mach3 in Windows 10?

I had been using Mach3 on WindowsXP machine thru a parallel port interface to a C10 breakout board. It worked flawlessly for years, until the PC died. I then transitioned to a windowsXP netbook using a USB connected UC100 smooth stepper interface. That works well as long as the USB connector never gets jiggled during operation, which causes a loss of sync, which requires a restart of Mach3. I have run dozens of programs with run times of a few minutes to several hours with great success, no loss steps or fails.

Knowing that the netbook is a temporary solution I have tried using Mach3 on a Windows 10 OS desktop using the UC100 smooth stepper. I have no end of issues of problems with corrupting .xml definitions. A profile might work for several different programs and then every other time I have to delete the profile and make a new one to get it to work. The corruption might be exhibited by a failure to connect with UC100, or MDI inputs might not be recognized. Or gcode execution might only proceed to spindle on and no movement. The PC is not being used to do any other activity while running Mach3. I tried the fastest kernal clock speed and the slowest kernel speed with no difference.

Does anyone have suggestions on how to make the Windows 10 operating environment work reliably with Mach3?

Would going to an ethernet smooth motion controller help?

Or is it time for me to change to a different control software like Mach4 or something else?

Thanks,
Kirk

Probably time to move on to Win11, Mach4, and an ethernet smoothstepper. Geekom has some great miniscule form factor computers, I bought one of these: https://www.geekompc.com/geekom-mini...xoC8FUQAvD_BwE, but you could get away with a lot lower specs like this: https://www.geekompc.com/geekom-mini-it8-se-mini-pc/

Considering they come WITH a WIn11 license the prices are great (just a user, no affiliation to the company).

You could try parallel port pcie card.

My understanding was that the parallel port interface only worked well on Windows XP. I was hoping someone might give me insight or corroborate issues with corrupting files and a work around. There are a number of references by people that have to reinstall Mach3 to fix corruption issues, but there is never any indication that they have done anything beyond a reinstall or references to ongoing corruption/reinstall cycles

I loaded Mach4 and was quickly stymied getting the input output items setup, For instance it was not clear how to set up all the pin definitions required just to drive a single axis's stepper module.

At this point I am more inclined to go to UCCNC as it will import the Mach3 profiles and I am not seeing much squawking about it's shortcomings.

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Originally Posted by krikrellim

At this point I am more inclined to go to UCCNC as it will import the Mach3 profiles and I am not seeing much squawking about it's shortcomings.

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I converted over from the demo version of Mach 3 to UCCNC in 2020. I was excited about UCCNC being able to import the Mach 3 profiles. They lie.

I had been warned by several CNCZone people who were knowledgeable that the UCCNC profile importer did not work very well and that I was better off configuring UCCNC manually. I disregarded this advice and went ahead and used the profile importer anyways. Sure enough, I had to go back and fix a lot of settings. I didn’t save any time at all using the Importer.

Luckily the UCCNC forum was helpful when I had questions.

Don’t get me wrong, UCCNC is great and I love using it on my mill. But their Mach 3 Importer is garbage.

Hi,
all development on Mach3 ceased eight years ago and it will compile on MS Studio from about 2005. Mach3 is an old application and will become increasingly unreliable
with Windows 10 and later.

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Or is it time for me to change to a different control software like Mach4 or something else?

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For instance it was not clear how to set up all the pin definitions required just to drive a single axis's stepper module.

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I've been using Mach4 for eight years and its light years ahead of Mach3. If you think that it should be easy to change from Mach3 to Mach4 your going to be disappointed,
its not easy. The people who struggle the most are people who are already familiar with Mach3, they seem to think that Mach4 should be the same, when its not.

For instance there is no .xml file that you may be used to. There is a file that (.ini) that performs the same function, but its constructed differently, and much easier to read should you
need to. The setup for the ports and pins are in the plugin associated with the motion control, in your case a UC100.

I use a Ethernet SmoothStepper, and so cannot comment on the usability of the UC100 plugin, but I can show you blow by blow what you need to do with the ESS plugin.
It's not easy, but it's not rocket science either.

Craig

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I was excited about UCCNC being able to import the Mach 3 profiles. They lie.

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No, they don't lie. But you can't import settings into UCCNC that don't exist in Mach3, or import Mach3 settings that don't exist in UCCNC. The settings that are in both will import, but there will always be some manual setup involved.

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At this point I am more inclined to go to UCCNC as it will import the Mach3 profiles and I am not seeing much squawking about it's shortcomings.

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Don't get too hung up on importing your Mach3 profile. Easier imo to just right down your port and pin numbers and enter them manually.
If you are having connection issues with your UC100 in Mach3, you'll likely have them in UCCNC as well. I'd recommend getting a new cable and getting the connection issues fixed first.
Then I'd most certainly switch to UCCNC.
Or, buy a UC400 or AXBB-E and then switch to UCCNC. The ethernet controllers are far superior to the UC100.
The UCCNC license is tied to the controller, so if you buy a license for the UC100, you'll need another license for a new controller.

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Originally Posted by ger21

Don't get too hung up on importing your Mach3 profile. Easier imo to just right down your port and pin numbers and enter them manually..

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Hello Ger,

You had helped me out during my transition to UCCNC back in 2020. Thanks!

If it is mainly a matter of simply writing down the port and pin numbers then I’m still confused why the Profile Importer can’t do that task for us?

I had tried to leave constructive feedback on my experience with the Profile Importer on the UCCNC forum back in 2020, but the impression I got was that they really didn’t care about their Profile Importer very much.

I did purchase the UCCNC. I did use the importer and the only thing I had to really mess with was the polarity on 2 of the 3 axes. The dialogs on the boxes for importing are a little terse and the youtube examples of importing are on a much earlier version of UCCNC and the menu layout is significantly different.

I dry ran a program and it seemed to work well. I really like that when you pause the program execution, the machine immediately stops. The "run from here" was also improved. I also like that by default each axis can be initialized separately. I use Tormach Pathpilot on PCNC1100 with tool changer as well, PathPilot was adapted from LinuxCNC. It appears the default version of UCCNC takes aspects of Mach3 and LinuxCNC. I will be trying out gCode ripper with UCCNC in the near future. I saw there is a plug in for autoleveling, I need to investigate it as well. Typically when I am using gcode ripper I need leveling plus localized mapping of the surface to successfully machine engraving on a non flat surface

I am pleased. Thank you to CNCdrive and PolardiDesign!!

One thing that I haven't tried, that my son in law suggested. Is changing the properties in Windows10 for the Mach3 application to run in "Windows XP" compatibility mode. I may try it seriously if I have issues running gcode ripper in UCCNC. I haven't ever seen that suggest in the posts about corrupting Mach3 installations.

I understand all sentiment to move on to new software, but it is human nature to resist change!!!!

Vlod :

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You could try parallel port pcie card

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Have you tried above, Supports all 3 modes of ECP ( Extended Capabilities Port )
EPP (Enhanced Parallel Port) and SPP
OS support: Windows 98/ME/2000/XP/ Win7 / Win10

Attachment 494028

Hi,
a parallel port is a backwards step. Model T's still run....but would you choose one for a daily runner?

Craig

:cheers: