[CNCMAN172]

Guys,

I have been running Mach3 for about ten years and it has been a good program. A few issues from time to time but able to make parts and have been pretty happy. This is just hobby stuff so it has been amazing to build stuff on my little home built cnc machine. Now after many years MACH4 has finally been released as Mach4 Hobby. I downloaded it and played with it and really like the interface especially the display of and how you can zoom in and out and rotate the part to be cut. Everything looks nice and clean and ran some sample gcode in the simulation mode and it all seems to work fine.

I then started looking for the plugins for my hardware. I went ahead and purchased the Ethernet SmoothStepper nice piece of hardware. I also have the POKEY unit for my MPG and found plugins for MACH4 for both of these items. The last item is a plugin for my 4KW Huanyang VFD. I know lots and lots of people uses these water and air cooled Chinese spindles which work great, and most of us have the Huanyang VFD which is not fully ModBus compliant. The big question has anyone built a plugin for MACH4 that works with these VFDs? Thanks


Russ

[Al_The_Man]

A tad late in reply, but there is a Mach Modbus plug in for the Huanyang VFD by royaumedeole.fr a google should pick it up or check the Mach forum.
Al.

[ger21]

That's for Mach3, Al. He's looking for a Mach 4 plugin.

[CNCMAN172]

Al,
That plugin is only for MACH3 not MACH4, the plugins for MACH4 are totally different and no MACH3 plugins work on Mach 4.

Russ

[Al_The_Man]

I should email him and see what he can do.
Al.

[CNCMAN172]

Al,

That would be great, there are many people using the plugin for MACH3, you can use the standard Modbus plugin because the Huanyang does not follow the Modbus standard completely, hence was the plugin was originally developed.

Russ

[Al_The_Man]

In the mean time, where/what is the best reference source for the Mach4 Modbus plug in differences?

I have been tinkering with a DC motor drive using the Huanyang modbus plug-in for it.
But I will obviously need to make changes for Mach4.
Sebastien (royaumedeole) may offer, but it was not high on his priority list.
Will update if anything transpires.
Al.

[Al_The_Man]

Apparently they have gone over to using Lua language in Mach4 in place of VS/VB so they have to be re-written.
Al.

[ger21]

Lua is the new scripting language. Plugins are not written in Lua, I don't think. Probably C, or something similar. But they still need to be completely re-written, as Mach4 itself is a complete re-write.
I believe that you need to sign an NDA to get access to the plugin SDK.

[Al_The_Man]

Thanks, I am waiting for Sebastien to get back to me, he is hard to get hold of.
Al.

[sergey6]

hi,
any news about Huanyang VFD plugin for MACH4

bought mach4 and can not use it till I have a plugin for my VFD :-(

[Al_The_Man]

Unfortunately I had no reply so far from emails to Sebastien so far.
Al.

[CNCMAN172]

Sergey6,

I have the same exact problem and did the original post. Nothing has ever showed, so my only option was to go with the analog input using a converter board. My pendant will not work with a POKEY with MACH4 so still no go so back to MACH3 where everything works, just not as pretty. Some day they might get all the drivers and plugins for MACH4, they are slow coming. I also purchased the ESS which had a plugin in but it also has issues, and the updates are very slow in coming, amazing since they have sold so many of the ESS units.

Russ