[loddie]

Newfangled Solutions has announced Mach4 will soon be available: Mach4 - Newfangled Solutions

What is the expected time frame for Dynomotion products to be compatible with Mach4?

I was going to purchase Mach3 for my CNC router and upgrade the controls with Dynomotion boards. But now I may wait because there is no point in buying Mach3.

Thanks!

[ger21]

Mach4 has been "available soon" for the last 3 years.

My guess is that we might see a beta release in the next 3-6 months, and another year before it's bug free.

So I wouldn't say there is no point in buying mach3 right now.

[bhurts]

Why not just use k-motion Cnc until Mach 4 comes out. It's free so no cost there and you don't have to wait 6months to a year.

Ben

[Dave.Kellogg]

I too am interested in knowing when Mach4 will be supported by KFlop.

[spank]

Tom has said that it would be a couple of months minimum to come up with something. If you don't already have Kflop, and are on the fence pending Mach 4, I would get the Kflop and start using it without Mach. Once Mach 4 is properly released and supported by Dynomotion, then it would be pretty simple to get Mach and use if you want to.

[Dave.Kellogg]

I'm more inclined to wait until Mach4 support is available on Dynomotion. My real interest is getting Mach4. Dynomotion is good hardware, but if they don't deliver quickly on Mach4 compatibility, I don't want to be stuck with their hardware. After all -- there are other options for hardware.

[bhurts]

What other options for mach 4 are going to be compatible in a shorter time frame? Seems to me that choosing hardware based on its ability to work with a program you have never used is crazy. According to Ger21 it could be a year or more before you can even think about using it reliably. Not to bash the mach programmer's I'm sure it will be a good program. Then again it might suck. If you base your opinions on hype your very likely to be disappointed more often then not. Oh well when I want something there's no steering me away from going for it. It wouldn't be right to expect other to turn away from there dreams either.

Ben

[mmoe]

It really won't make any difference when Kflop supports Mach 4 unless it's significantly after Mach 4 is released. For all anyone here knows, it could be another year before you even see Mach 4, or it could be next week. I use a CS Labs controller and they are working on a Mach 4 plugin, but even if it were done, what good would that do me? It would just mean that I can count on it working with Mach 4, but since I can't buy Mach 4 it would not help me cut a single part.

I think you can count on just about any major Mach controller being supported by Mach 4 eventually, but there is no reason that you can't buy and use Mach 3 or the Kflop software while you wait, which still could be a very long time. You can find speculation as to when Mach 4 would be released all the way back to like 2010. I went through the same thought process 6-8 months ago and I'd feel like an idiot if I hadn't just bought Mach 3 and went on with life. My machine has been cutting whenever I need it for that time instead of sitting there waiting for Mach 4.

[ger21]

What other options for mach 4 are going to be compatible in a shorter time frame?

From my understanding, all hardware motion controller plugins for Mach4 will need the assistance of the Mach4 developers. There will be some sort of "Certification" to insure that Mach4 runs equally well with all available motion controllers.

According to Ger21 it could be a year or more before you can even think about using it reliably.

That's not exactly what I said. And I probably should have worded that differently. It may not be buggy at all, but when it finally gets released, don't expect all the features to be up and running right away. It may very well be able to be used reliably right from the start. I really don't know, and the time frame I mentioned above is just a guess on my part.

Brian (Artsoft) has said that the ethernet Smooth Stepper will be the first available device, with others to follow. I would expect to see the Mach4 parallel port driver working as well when Mach4 is released. However, as virtually all new OS's are now 64 bit, it may not make much sense to devote too much time to a parallel port driver that few people may end up using.

Seems to me that choosing hardware based on its ability to work with a program you have never used is crazy.

That's pretty much the way it right now with mach3. Currently each hardware developer writes their own plugins, so you really have no idea of which Mach3 functions work with each device, and if they even work the same way as another device.
I think the goal with Mach4 is to have much better and consistent hardware integration.

I think that a lot of people are very disappointed in the time it's taken for Mach4 to arrive. I expected it a year ago. And what I really want is a new trajectory planner, which is going to be at least another year again.
If it doesn't fulfill it's promises, it could be a big failure. If there were more alternatives, people would be jumping ship right now. Let's hope it's as good as it's supposed to be.

[bhurts]

Ger21, sorry if it seems I misquoted you. I was just stating what I interpreted as your worst case scenario. As for trajectory planning that is what I see as the most important part of any control. That is the reason I chose k motion cnc over mach3. I use expensive vmc's at work and have used many different controls. I think the quality of motion paths and speed of execution in k-motion is easily on par with the controls I have used and better by far then some.

Ben

[spank]

I'm more inclined to wait until Mach4 support is available on Dynomotion. My real interest is getting Mach4. Dynomotion is good hardware, but if they don't deliver quickly on Mach4 compatibility, I don't want to be stuck with their hardware. After all -- there are other options for hardware.

As MMOE says, you can use Kflop with Mach3 right now if you feel inclined. I find it hard to believe that Kflop wouldn't support Mach4 in the near future. Beyond that though being "stuck" with a Kflop is probably better than being stuck with anything else! Even when Mach 4 comes out, I'll probably check it out, but I doubt that I'll use it over KmotionCNC, as it already has really good trajectory planning.