[curiosity22]

Hey G'day folks,

I don't normally like to sing too many praises. Making an exception today, a mate of mine has an old 3 axis steel built CNC moving platform stationary gantry. Nema 24 steppers, standard control box of some sort. It is the slowest CnC I had ever seen, does a good job but you could do a rip van winkle by the time it would finish a job.

Today we spoke a couple of times, his machine was acting up again, trying to do a simple job a 3d relief in wood of Mary and Child nothing spectacular - cutting some blackwood, job size 350 x 350. His job stopped randomly during roughing a few times, gets through that goes to a final pass, job randomly stopped again 2/3 times, and then lost steps and buried the bit dragging it across the job ruining it so a good piece of timber out the door.

As you can imagine the language on the phone not a happy chappy.

Well seeing as I busted my Z axis coupler - will teach me to buy cheap parts.. Can't get another one till Monday. Took over my UC100 for him to use and try.

Well folks let me tell you...

His machine is 300% +++ running better, it is faster by a factor of 4. The motors are no longer noisy they used to sound like angry dogs.

He is finishing his job now which would have normally taken him about 6/7 hours for a final pass finish. It will be finished in under 2.5 hours. Roughing which was just under 2 hours was finished in 39 minutes.

He hasn't taken delivery of a new PC he ordered but is going to be happy to cancel the order. Using his old PC with the UC100 and all great.

So I'm sure that any sooth stepper would have done the job and shown and given him better performance.

Murphy's law if you buy one you could have the worst experience ever. All I can say is that I'm happy with the product on my machine and my mate well he can't believe that his machine is his machine.

Parallel port really does need to go. He couldn't have done any more, no antivirus, no trojan checkers, no internet, no peripherals hanging off his machine. Clean skin just there for CnC use nothing else.

What a difference its made. He had already purchased a UC100 and their software, more as a last ditch why not, taking my word for it that he will be better off. Well actually using the machine with the UC100 has put a smile on his face he knows now what to expect.

If you have one and have a mate that has a CnC lend it to them for a job see if it doesn't put a smile on their face as well.


Cheers,
Steve

As a by the by do couplers have a rating of any sort that I should be looking for this is actually the second one that I've managed to destroy. Both units were the spring type. Have ordered two now that have a red plastic/pvc type center no more spring.

[ger21]

Yes, couplers are rated for torque, and max allowable misalignment.