[SCzEngrgGroup]

Novakon has, for some time, been very interested in moving to a better motion controller and software for their machines. I have been working with them to survey the options, and help make the selection, hence the reason I've been "interviewing" motion controllers and software lately.

I'm happy to report, we have settled on the UCCNC ETH-400. The hardware part of this is a small Ethernet motion controller very similar to the current SmoothStepper, in form-factor, but with a number of very significant advantages, the MOST important being that, while it can run with Mach3, it can also be run with UCCNCs own controller software. After spending a few days playing with both hardware and software, I am quite impressed by both the hardware and software.

To start, hardware and software configuration was incredibly quick easy. In fact, about 10 minutes after unpacking the board, it was installed, largely configured, and moving all three axes and the spindle on my Pulsar, including having the necessary functionality for rigid tapping. I spent about half a day really studying how best to configure things, and ended up making a few changes, particularly to the spindle configuration, to make it operate even better.

The configuration dialogs in the UCCNC software are very straight-forward - much more-so than those in Mach3, with everything logically arranged, so all the settings for each axis are easy to find, as they are all in one place. As an added bonus, I was able to free up two output signals, with no loss of functionality! For Pulsar owners, a very simple hardware change will even enable peck-rigid-tapping using canned cycles, and spindle indexing!

The GUI is, overall, quite intuitive, and provides all the functionality most users would ever need or want. It is very logically organized, so the learning curve is relatively short. Documentation is also very good, and kept up-to-date with each new release.

Perhaps the best feature of the whole system is that almost everything is highly configurable, and through a FAR better, easier interface than those available with Mach3. Since the whole controller application is written using Microsoft .NET, plug-ins can be written using ANY .NET language - c#, c++, VisualBasic, Pascal, COBOL, Javascript, etc.. Plug-ins and macros are fully supported, along with a far more sophisticated "macro-pump" capability. Custom screensets are fully supported, and anyone who has done a Mach3 screenset should find them fairly easy to do. Custom M-codes are easy as well. It supports MODBUS, and while there is plenty of support for off-the-shelf pendants and other peripherals, even a custom pendant or other controller is fairly easily do-able. Supporting my ATC, for example, I expect will be only an afternoons work.

And, the software is still under active development, with new features being added on a regular basis. I am actually looking forward to retiring the custom controller application I wrote for the KFlop and switching to a UCCNC controller with my own screenset!

Regards,
Ray L.

[Steve303]

Looking forward to learning more about the ETH-400. How long have you been running the ETH-400 before making the decision?

Steve

[daniellyall]

Someone definitely cost there company a lot of money, Thats a win for UCCNC

[SCzEngrgGroup]

I've only been running it here a few days, but I have several friends who've been running it for as much as 5+ years, and have created screensets, plug-ins, macros, etc. for the UCCNC products. Several of them are very well known on these forums, and others. I have yet to hear a single bad word from anyone who's actually used the UCCNC products, and all my dealings with the folks who created them have been very positive.

Regards,
Ray L.

[ger21]

You should look at the UC300ETH with the UB1 breakout board.
Lots of 24V I/O, plus analog I/O for spindle and FRO.

The UC300ETH is only about $20 more than the UC400ETH, and gives you a lot more.

UC300ETH-UB1 [UC300ETH-UB1] - $320.00 : CNCRoom, The Room for CNC'ers, from Mini to Big machine, from Hobbyists to Gurus - ????????????????? ???????????????????????????????

[SCzEngrgGroup]

The UC300 breajout board is, according to its spec sheet, limited to 100kHz step frequency. On the Pulsar, I'm using the full 400kHz range of the ETH400. The ETH400 is a drop-in replacement for the SmoothStepper, with no wiring changes required. And, it still has one full port, plus a few pins, uncommitted, so its using less than half the I/O on the ETH400. Even I don't need any more than that, and I expect I have more I/O on my machine than most people would.

Regards,
Ray L.

[ger21]

Did you look at the link I posted?
The ethernet UC300ETH has the same 400Khz step rate as the UC400ETH.
You must have looked at the older USB UC300.

[Titaniumboy]

No cutter compensation with G40,G41, and G42?

[A_Camera]

No cutter compensation with G40,G41, and G42?

Yes there is. But you need to use the latest UCCNC version.

[Titaniumboy]

I had went through the manual at the UCCNC website, but did not realize it was written for a much earlier version of the software.

I just went through the change log at the UCCNC forum and I did not see it in the latest version 1.2047 which was released December 21, 2017?

[ger21]

It's in the latest test release, as it's still in development. It needs a little fine tuning, but it's close.

forum.cncdrive.com ? View topic - UCCNC test releases posted in this thread

[kvom]

Screenset Gerry posted link to looks pretty solid, although I don't see any jogging controls,

I assume that the software will be enhanced to support tool changer.

[ger21]

Jog controls are on a flyout screen on the left.

You can program the M6 macro for any type of toolchanger that you want, similar to Mach3.

[OlfCNC]

Screenset Gerry posted link to looks pretty solid, although I don't see any jogging controls,

I assume that the software will be enhanced to support tool changer.

You can jog with the buttons on the jog panel. it opens up on the left side of the screen.
You can jog with hotkeys too.
You can jog with button calls from macros and plugins too.
You can jog also with MPG.

Toolchangers are fully supported via the M6 macro, you can write code to run any type of toolchangers. Example code is also there in the M6 macro which install with the software.

[A_Camera]

You can also do as I do...

Attachment 386330

...buy a cheap USB keypad, define the keys you want to use and use that instead of the jog panel. I almost never open the jog panel.

[mklotz70]

This is pretty exciting news Ray! Thanks!! I was a bit bummed when you had so much grief with the acorn since I was looking to go down that path. I'm looking forward to seeing/learning more about this! Any clue how much the shipping is from Hungary? The controller is a lot cheaper directly from them than the US supplier someone posted a link to. If John is switching over to this, I'm guessing he'll start offering it as an upgrade when he can.

[OlfCNC]

Or something like this.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Mini-Wirele...syYUfj3eDytEdw

[SCzEngrgGroup]

This is pretty exciting news Ray! Thanks!! I was a bit bummed when you had so much grief with the acorn since I was looking to go down that path. I'm looking forward to seeing/learning more about this! Any clue how much the shipping is from Hungary? The controller is a lot cheaper directly from them than the US supplier someone posted a link to. If John is switching over to this, I'm guessing he'll start offering it as an upgrade when he can.

Mike,

Yes, it will be offered as an upgrade, and a very simple one at that. Not sure how to buy direct, if you even can anymore.

Regards,
Ray L.

[SCzEngrgGroup]

Did you look at the link I posted?
The ethernet UC300ETH has the same 400Khz step rate as the UC400ETH.
You must have looked at the older USB UC300.

Ger,

I see ZERO specs on the cncdrive website. I realize the UC300 itself will do 400kHz, but the 100kHz number came from the "product manual" for the breakout board on the CNC4PC site, which has the ONLY specs I've been able to find for the breakout. So, I'd be happy to recommend the UC300ETH, but I'd have to see some actual published specs first that tell me the breakout actually supports 400kHz.

Regards,
Ray L.

[ger21]

CNC4PC doesn't sell the UB1 breakout board, so I don't know what you are looking at. I gave you a link to the product, and you apparently looked at everything BUT the link I gave you.

The controller is a lot cheaper directly from them than the US supplier someone posted a link to

The prices from CNC4PC are comparable to the prices direct from Hungary, as their prices are in Euros.