[LeoLeroyx]

Which Is better? NK105g3 or Mach 3?

Would like to find out whic control system is better.

WE were given NK105 controller but would like to know if this controller can be changed over to Mach 3 or something to be used on PC.

[joeavaerage]

Hi,
I have no idea what NK105g3 is.

I use Mach4 and have done for eight years and used Mach3 prior to that. There are many improvements made in Mach4 that make it much better than Mach3 in my
opinion, however there are still thousands whom still use Mach3 and swear by it. All development of Mach3 ceased eight years ago.

If you were considering Mach at all I'd have to recommend Mach4 rather than Mach3.

UCCNC (by CNCDrive) is another PC based software solution and is broadly similar in price/performance to Mach4.

Note that both UCCNC and Mach4 require an external motion control board, and they range in price/performance, but around $200USD gets a very flexible and capable controller.

Another solution is LinuxCNC. As the name suggests it runs on a specialist realtime version of the Linux operating system. The software is free and open source. Its very capable
and flexible but rewards those whom can program in C. It really requires a little extra hardware, Mesa boards for example to get the best from it. They are price comparable (approx $200USD)
to the motion control boards of Mach4 and UCCNC.

I do not know much about PlanetCNC, but there is a board on this forum dedicated to it....so ask your questions.

Centroid Acorn is a commercial software that runs on a PC and has a proprietary motion control board that accompanies it for about $450. It is as near to a turn key solution that you'll get
for that sort of money. It lacks some of the flexibility of Mach4, UCCNC and LinuxCNC, but has carved itself a good reputation amongst its users.

Craig

[peteeng]

Hi Leo - I looked up the NK105 and it is a motion controller. It is not a machine controller unless it came with its own machine control software. So you will need to use UCCNC/Mach or similiar to drive the NK105 which then sends/receives signals to/from the motor drivers and peripherals.. Peter Its a 3 axis controller (NK105-g3) if your machine has 4 drives then you will need a new 4 axis controller.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1wYaRBVNQs