[clockwise]

I'm on the fence about which mill, which company. Same decision process everybody goes through. I'm figuring out that Mach 3 is a piece of software that may require dedicated hardware. I'm surprised to read so many recurring problems about Mach3 and computers when it looks like a simple fix. When it comes down to cost, why not just get your own computer and get the ESS and be done with it? Has anybody done that here? Anybody buy a Tormach without the pc controller and just get a $100 pc, put $200 down for the ESS and be happy with that?

[compunerdy]

I have used Mach on 5 or more PC's and never had a issue. I have always ran XP though..

[Steve Seebold]

When I bought my machine, I looked into buying a separate computer and loading the Mach Operating System myself, but the price was within about $50.00 of the price of the control computer from Tormach.

I have been running Mach for a little over 3 years now, and I have had absolutely no problems with it.

I came out of a machine shop environment where I ran machines that had Fanuc, Yasnac, Mazatrol (Mazak) FADAL, Haas, Centurion, and some other controls I can remember, but so far, this Mach control will do anything those controls would do.

I think the problems you read about are caused by people who buy the system and "think" they know a way to make it better, or they don't like the way it does something and they "think" the know a way to make it better. Come on guys, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

The only limiting factors I have found with my Tormach/Mach set up is my imagination and horsepower. I can do anything on my Tormach that you can do on all those other machines, it's just going to take a little longer.

[clockwise]

When I bought my machine, I looked into buying a separate computer and loading the Mach Operating System myself, but the price was within about $50.00 of the price of the control computer from Tormach.

I have been running Mach for a little over 3 years now, and I have had absolutely no problems with it.

I came out of a machine shop environment where I ran machines that had Fanuc, Yasnac, Mazatrol (Mazak) FADAL, Haas, Centurion, and some other controls I can remember, but so far, this Mach control will do anything those controls would do.

I think the problems you read about are caused by people who buy the system and "think" they know a way to make it better, or they don't like the way it does something and they "think" the know a way to make it better. Come on guys, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

The only limiting factors I have found with my Tormach/Mach set up is my imagination and horsepower. I can do anything on my Tormach that you can do on all those other machines, it's just going to take a little longer.

I appreciate you sharing your experience, thank you.

[Moggot]

I'll also chime in that Mach three has never been an issue for me, either. There are enough complaints from smart people to make me think that issues aren't always entirely a user error sort of thing. I'd wager that those problems are likely a lot more rare then systems that run perfectly happy, though. It's a squeaky wheel sort of situation.

I wouldn't hesitate to recommend the Tormach controller/mach 3 setup.

[SCzEngrgGroup]

I'm on the fence about which mill, which company. Same decision process everybody goes through. I'm figuring out that Mach 3 is a piece of software that may require dedicated hardware. I'm surprised to read so many recurring problems about Mach3 and computers when it looks like a simple fix. When it comes down to cost, why not just get your own computer and get the ESS and be done with it? Has anybody done that here? Anybody buy a Tormach without the pc controller and just get a $100 pc, put $200 down for the ESS and be happy with that?

What makes you think Mach3 + ESS would be any more reliable than Mach3 + PP? IME, it's been, at best, a wash. In most cases, if you have trouble with one, you'll have trouble with the other. On the Tormach, you have a system that they specifically put together to make as reliably as they reasonably could, so why mess with it?

The primary reason for going with an external motion controller is to get more accurate and consistent step pulse timing at higher step rates. On the Tormach, this is not an issue, as it's step rate is relatively low, so it works just fine on the PP. So, a motion controller has little to offer, and may not even work with the Tormach version of Mach3.

FWIW - Both Novakon machines now include the ESS at least on the AC servo models, if not all models.

Regards,
Ray L.

[clockwise]

What makes you think Mach3 + ESS would be any more reliable than Mach3 + PP? IME, it's been, at best, a wash. In most cases, if you have trouble with one, you'll have trouble with the other. On the Tormach, you have a system that they specifically put together to make as reliably as they reasonably could, so why mess with it?

The primary reason for going with an external motion controller is to get more accurate and consistent step pulse timing at higher step rates. On the Tormach, this is not an issue, as it's step rate is relatively low, so it works just fine on the PP. So, a motion controller has little to offer, and may not even work with the Tormach version of Mach3.

FWIW - Both Novakon machines now include the ESS at least on the AC servo models, if not all models.

Regards,
Ray L.

I appreciate your opinion that it's maybe not as big of a deal as I thought. Actually if it wasn't for your posts on the other forum, I wouldn't even be looking at Nova's and then I read they were putting them on which I thought was interesting.
My opinion comes from having read many posts from others about mis-steps and reading a few pages on blog.cnccookbook from Bob Warfield on the topic. I just figured that PC's really are not up to the task as much as a dedicated board would be. I wouldn't mess with what Tormach came up with if going that route. I am just trying to figure out why rely on a PC when somebody has come up with a solution to mis-steps. As much effort as Tormach and others have put into solving this problem trying to hunt down specific motherboards for a PC, a couple hundred bucks seems like a quicker fix. Cheers

[DaQue]

I don't have the money or room for a Tormach but I have always thought if I could swing one I would mod it to be closed loop. I'm not sure which board I would use, I just don't feel safe open loop even though its proven it can be very reliable.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

[SCzEngrgGroup]

I appreciate your opinion that it's maybe not as big of a deal as I thought. Actually if it wasn't for your posts on the other forum, I wouldn't even be looking at Nova's and then I read they were putting them on which I thought was interesting.
My opinion comes from having read many posts from others about mis-steps and reading a few pages on blog.cnccookbook from Bob Warfield on the topic. I just figured that PC's really are not up to the task as much as a dedicated board would be. I wouldn't mess with what Tormach came up with if going that route. I am just trying to figure out why rely on a PC when somebody has come up with a solution to mis-steps. As much effort as Tormach and others have put into solving this problem trying to hunt down specific motherboards for a PC, a couple hundred bucks seems like a quicker fix. Cheers

The PC is almost never responsible for missed steps, unless running at high step rates. 99.9% of "lost steps" problems are the result of poor design (motors too small, or running too fast, or poor drivers, or too low supply voltage, too little current, etc). If you get missed steps, and external motion controller is extremely unlikely to solve the problem. At the modest step rates the Tormach requires, the PP works just fine, and will never be the cause of lost steps.

Regards,
Ray L.

[ger21]

My opinion comes from having read many posts from others about mis-steps and reading a few pages on blog.cnccookbook from Bob Warfield on the topic. I just figured that PC's really are not up to the task as much as a dedicated board would be. I wouldn't mess with what Tormach came up with if going that route. I am just trying to figure out why rely on a PC when somebody has come up with a solution to mis-steps.

There are far more people with working Mach3 parallel port systems than the ones posting about problems. Probably in the tens of thousands.

The Smoothstepper is not a "solution" to "mis-steps" (whatever that means). It's an alternative for PC's without parallel ports, or those needing higher step rates than the parallel port can provide.

And the Smoothstepper is not without bugs of it's own. It's been available for about 5 years now, and the plugins are still not bug free.

[zephyr9900]

I've been running my Series 1 (through the parallel port using Mach 3.043.066 using the Tormach profile and macros) for over a year on a $20 surplus HP t5720 thin client running XP embedded. Not a glitch other than the occasional operator error (I swear I pressed Z+...)

Randy

[Kenny Duval]

I've been running my Series 1 (through the parallel port using Mach 3.043.066 using the Tormach profile and macros) for over a year on a $20 surplus HP t5720 thin client running XP embedded. Not a glitch other than the occasional operator error (I swear I pressed Z+...)

Randy

Mine came with the same operator errors.

[mountaindew]

Mine came with the same operator errors.

Same here. So far 100% of my errors are pebkac errors
md

[Kenny Duval]

Same here. So far 100% of my errors are pebkac errors
md

Mine are a little different. I get a lot of ID 10 T errors.

[clockwise]

Thanks for the information guys, really appreciate as I learn more about these systems. Coming from a manual mill area of knowledge.

[sansbury]

I went with linuxcnc and haven't had a hiccup with it. The issue I have with Mach is you have to tiptoe around it. On my $200 linuxcnc box with 1GB of RAM I can browse the web to look things up while it's running, edit files, and leave Dropbox running to swap files from my CAD/CAM PC without a care in the world. People who set Mach up and use it properly seem to have good enough luck with it but I see more reports of occasional glitchiness than I like. If I was going to go that route I'd definitely buy the full setup from Tormach.

[ger21]

The issue I have with Mach is you have to tiptoe around it.

What does that mean?
I run Mach3 on a $20 PC from Ebay, and it's been running fine for over 5 years. There's no "tiptoeing" around anything. Install it, assign pins, and start running.

You see more reports of glitches because it has 50x the user base of LinuxCNC.

[SCzEngrgGroup]

What does that mean?
I run Mach3 on a $20 PC from Ebay, and it's been running fine for over 5 years. There's no "tiptoeing" around anything. Install it, assign pins, and start running.

You see more reports of glitches because it has 50x the user base of LinuxCNC.

Ger,

Pretty sure he's suggesting, rightly so, that with Mach3, you basically have to keep your hands off the PC when the machine is running. Using other application while the machine is running can lead to serious problems. Many have reported simply using a USB FLASH drive can disrupt Mach3. LinuxCNC does not have this problem, nor do some other Windows options, like the KFlop. With the KFlop, I can do whatever I want on my PC, even run CAD/CAM, while the machine is running, and the machine never skips a beat. With Mach3, you can gag Mach3 by doing nothing more than bringing another application window to the foreground. This is because the trajectory planner and low-level time-critical code in Mach3 all run in the same thread as the display handler. Do something that takes a lot of time to re-draw the display, and time-critical parts of Mach3 do not run in time. This is one of the key architectural issues Mach4 fixes - the entire UI runs in a separate thread from the time-critical controller code.

Regards,
Ray L.

[sansbury]

Gerry, it's right in my message. Plugging or unplugging USB thumb drives causes problems for a lot of people, so they say "don't do it while the machine is running." Many people opt to not connect to a network, or shut off the 'net or airgap it when running to prevent an interrupt from glitching the controller. Maybe you think of this as normal, but to me it's an indication that the system is brittle.

[phil burman]

In the early years of the PCNC1100 there was no such thing as a dedicated, purpose built control computer. I used a run of the mill PC dating from 2004 running XP with a clock speed 20% less than the recommended minimum. The three main recommendations were, don't use a laptop, clean out the OS to a minimum as per ArtSoft recommendations and don't run anything else while running Mach. I'm still using this setup today (almost 9 years later) and have had zero problems that can be attributed to this setup.

Phil