[sook11]

HI I'M NEW TO CNC,
I WILL BE BUYING A BL20 MILL AND CONVERTING IT OVER AND WILL BE RUNNING CLOSED LOOP STEPPERS,




Nema34 HSS86 Hybrid Driver Servo Stepper Motor 4.5N.m OR 8 M.N


BUT JUST CANT DECIDE ON THE CONTROL SYSTEM THIS IS WHAT I'M LOOKING AT






4 Axis CNC Motion Controller DDCSV1.1 500KHz Stepper Motor Driver + Handwheel AU





Centroid Acorn CNC control kit w/ CNC software, Mach3/4 Mill Lathe upgrade kit

4 Axis Mach3 USB 2MHz CNC Breakout Board Motion Control Card

MACH3 Ethernet Ethernet Motion Control Card Mach3 controller

I USE FUSION 360 AND ASPIRE VERTIC FOR CAD AND HAVE PLAYED WITH

MACH3 A LITTLE

CAN SOMEONE STEER ME IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION

[ger21]

I wouldn't use any chinese motion controller.
So that leaves you with the Acorn.

[sook11]

what else can i use

[ger21]

If you want to use Mach3, there are a variety of controllers.
ESS from Warp 9.
UC series from CNC Drive.
KFlop
CS Labs
Vital Systems.

And alternatives to Mach3 are:

LinuxCNC
UCCNC
Planet CNC
Eding CNC

[rodw]

My vote would be for LinuxCNC. Its free.

[A_Camera]

...and my vote goes for UCCNC. It is not free, but pretty cheap and definitely excellent with good (and free) support if needed.

[A_Camera]

My vote would be for LinuxCNC. Its free.

If money is an issue then this is the wrong hobby. I can't for my life understand that sort of argument, to me spending a pile of money on hardware and wanting to save a few $ on software is kind of illogical.

[hanermo]

IF You can afford it, the Cslabs products and the CSMIO-IP-S system is probably the best solution out there, mostly by a wide margin or superior to most-all other stuff.
I have it on my lathe, a somewhat expensive experimental industrial-level retrofit.

One that does really well more economical is the PoLabs stuff, pokeys ethernet being a great cheap choice.
Limited to 125 kHz / 4 axis on Mach3.

For simple 3 axis stuff like basic wood routers and basic gcode, most hw controllers do fine as-is.

As soon as one wants *good* MPGs, or good "anything" most controllers do not do fine at all.
Same for endless stuff if one wants or needs any of some of the very common important productivity features common to all good industrial controls.

Typical critical items, that do not work "well", are;
-MPGs,
-Pause/feedhold
-FRO/SSO,
-homing,
-probing,
in that ALL above must work in hw/firmware at the hw controller level to be any good.

The best controllers like cslabs and polabs stuff allow You to adjust fro/ss/feeds in real time, will pause/feedhold in real-time, typically 1-some ms or so (1 ms to some ms. Vastly better than 1 / sec or sw update loops around 0.1 s).
Better stuff will run mpgs with less than 1 ms update loops.
And yes, it is important.
It is critical.

Both cslabs / csmio-ip-s or pokeys stuff will act and feel and work as good as 70-200k industrial machines I used to sell a lot of.
Generally, almost no USB stuff will.

Generally the cheap stuff and usb stuff did not / does not support high rates of pulse train + io well or at all.
This is critical.

Examples:
With high update rates, and high resolutions, one can "feel" the machine and it responds in real time, on mpgs.
Csmio-ip-s. Polabs.
(Pokeys ethernet and cslabs stuff both are absolutely amazing on mpgs/feedhold.
(And high speed io on fro/sso, limits, probing errors etc).)

It wont crash and break things - on mpgs. (Usually).
It wont crash and break things - on programs. (Usually).

I faulted the lathe spindle/z axis 3-4 times (90 Nm torque == 11 kW industrial lathe power relative torque). No damage. (C axis) on very heavy drilling == 24 mm D / tool steel 150 rpm.
I faulted x or z axis on 750W/10Nm/1:2 servos at 2000 kgf push force 3-4-5 times. No damage.
Because the very very heavy and rigid and strong components will still bend about 0.1 mm = 100 microns .. before anything (expensive) breaks (lots of) hard stuff.
And the servos/system/controller faults around half that error of 0.1 mm.
In about 1-2 ms in time if the crash is fast enough (12 kHz update loop == 0.1 ms).

The cslabs controller runs at 4Mhz (my servos need 500 kHz max).

--
I am not "putting down" some of the other cheap stuff - esp. chinese cc-xxx or the us-xxx - at all.
For a lot of users and uses they do a great job for very little money, and good pulse trains in their niche.
I point out the limitations in that niche -- and agree that for very many users they are good value for money, (with limited advanced features most (9/10 or more) will never need).
--
I am not putting down some of the other "good" or advanced stuff - like maybe ds-xxx or vital or machmotion - at all.
I do not have their hw to test and try ..
I have never criticized them directly - since I have zero reason to.
--
Some good advanced linux cnc solutions have been done with mesa hw and linux cnc.

But very few or pretty few *advanced ones* are documented.
Fwiw..
I was in the past a major industrial linux user for a long time in IT stuff in very large industrial scale at very high quality/cost/skills.

Linuxcnc can use fairly cheap mesa hw to deliver excellent results on complex stuff as well as simple stuff.
On a one-off-machine scale on complex stuff where every machine is a new custom development project, more or less, to an extent.

Linux is great to make 10k+ identical bots (1M++) with identical hw.
Marginal linux costs are low on high qty. while upfront costs are high if done well,
versus near-zero upfront costs if done as-is with major huge costs/margins/liabilities/problems guaranteed down the line.

Almost all famous great growth stories like 3d printers show this very well.
Netappliance, crowdsourced lasers, maker stuff, etc etc etc.
Endless multimillion dollar failures .. on time to deliver and features and costs ..


Linux is *great* to make families-of-products if you have the skills and resources to do so.
This requires high-end skills and experience in industrial mass deployment and all sorts of stuff in skills.