[Mwmx54]

I’ve been using Mach4 for several years now, ai run it on an old desktop and up until now it has worked fine, I updated mach4 as well as had to load a new machine profile in fusion360 when that computer crashed. So it could be either of those things I suppose. So, it works fine on the first program I run, if I stop the program or it finishes, when I go to start it again or load a new program, the machine will barely work, as in it will move a little, stop, move a little, stop, and the fro will also lag way behind, until I restart mach4, then I can run another program. Any ideas what could cause this? All settings in Mach are the same, it’s just the newest version now.

[joeavaerage]

Hi,
what build Mach4 had you been running and what build of Mach4 are you updated to?. What motion controller are you using?

Mach4 came out a while back with the first of the 5000 series builds but caused a lot of grief with different motion controllers. The 5000 series did certain things way WAY faster than previous builds
and may motion controllers went into a race condition on certain operations.

I use an Ethernet SmoothStepper and I believe the latest plugins from Warp9 for the ESS have solved those issues, but I, like many, are still using an earlier build, in my case 4612 and ESS 275.
If there is nothing that I need from the latest build.......then I don't bother. No matter how good there always seems some drama when updating....so unless I have to I don't bother.

Craig

[Mwmx54]

Hi,
what build Mach4 had you been running and what build of Mach4 are you updated to?. What motion controller are you using?

Mach4 came out a while back with the first of the 5000 series builds but caused a lot of grief with different motion controllers. The 5000 series did certain things way WAY faster than previous builds
and may motion controllers went into a race condition on certain operations.

I use an Ethernet SmoothStepper and I believe the latest plugins from Warp9 for the ESS have solved those issues, but I, like many, are still using an earlier build, in my case 4612 and ESS 275.
If there is nothing that I need from the latest build.......then I don't bother. No matter how good there always seems some drama when updating....so unless I have to I don't bother.

Craig

That’s usually how I play updates on this sort of thing, I’m not sure the build I had or have now, just that the previous build was from around 2019, and the new one is from last week. If I recall it was the “stable” version. I’m also working on a plasma table build, so could be I’m remembering that part wrong. I also have an ESS control board. Do I possibly need a different plugin or something for that? Very strange that it works, until stopping then starting, or loading a new file. I was doing engraving, which maybe is a bit heavy on movements, I tried setting the tolerance from .0004 to .001” with no noticeable change.

[joeavaerage]

Hi,
if you have a recent build of Mach4 then it will certainly be of the 5000 series, probably 5036. In which case you will absolutely need a new ESS plugin, I think 309 is the current
and most bug free plugin by Warp9 for 5000series Mach4 builds.

Craig

[Mwmx54]

Hi,
if you have a recent build of Mach4 then it will certainly be of the 5000 series, probably 5036. In which case you will absolutely need a new ESS plugin, I think 309 is the current
and most bug free plugin by Warp9 for 5000series Mach4 builds.

Craig

Good to know! I just launched mach4 and it said v266. So I guess I’ll try updating to 309. Looks like mach4 is 5036, warp9 instructions to install say to use v298 I believe for 5000 series, does that sound right? Or maybe I found an outdated instruction page.
Edit: I thought I chose the recommended version, but that is 4809, so maybe I should downgrade to that one. I updated to the 298, and the problem is the same. Maybe downgrade? Not sure what else to try.

[joeavaerage]

Hi,
Greg has been working on the plugin in Andy's absence and I believe 309 is the best for 5036.

Personally I would use 4809 and its matching ESS plugin version...if you can still get 4809. It seems to me that NFS remove earlier builds from the FTP site way sooner than they should.
As far as I know there is absolutely nothing that 5036 can do that my existing 4612 cannot so I carry on with 4612.

Craig

[Mwmx54]

Hi,
Greg has been working on the plugin in Andy's absence and I believe 309 is the best for 5036.

Personally I would use 4809 and its matching ESS plugin version...if you can still get 4809. It seems to me that NFS remove earlier builds from the FTP site way sooner than they should.
As far as I know there is absolutely nothing that 5036 can do that my existing 4612 cannot so I carry on with 4612.

Craig

Yeah I am only seeing the 5000 download for mach4, I can get earlier plugins for ESS, but I don’t see anything for mach4 anyone know where I might be able to find the old versions?
I also can’t find an ESS version later than the 298, which was listed as the recommended version for the 5000 mach4, but it also says on the warp9 site it is having issues, but then I can’t download the previous version mach4.

[Mwmx54]

I haven’t tested this yet, but Trevor from newfangled pointed out the current “recommended” mach4 version which is 4809 can be downloaded from the warp9 directions, along with their recommended ESS plugin which is 285. I’m going to try that when I have some time. Hopefully people see this before downloading the “warp9’s not recomended” 5xxx version from newfangled like I did.

[joeavaerage]

Hi,
I agree and think that NFS remove good and stable builds of Mach4 way WAY too early. There are thousands of users running 4809 and will be for some years yet. It does everything that is required
so why not.

NFS had some new code for the 5000 series, and I have no doubt they thought it was a big step in the right direction.....but no. All of the existing motion control plugins, including Warp9, Vital Systems,
CNCDrive, PoKeys and PMDX, ALL struggled with the new 5000 series code. NFS are pointing their fingers at the motion control manufacturers and meanwhile users are getting serious faults.

I think this is a case of plain stupidity on the behalf of NFS. I understand that the model is that the motion controller must have an appropriate plugin, but to change the code base that radically that
ALL of the motion controller plugins failed is wrong. They should have released the new code to the motion control manufacturers prior to its public release.

This is the worst of it....NFS released the new 5000 series code....and caused untold grief amongst Mach4 users....and for what? Can anyone point to some feature or capability that is in 5000 that is not
in 4809? I can't.

This is a classic case of (software) engineers saying 'we can do this and this....' but without asking and answering the question 'is this what our customers want and need?'.

I am, by and large, a staunch supporter of NFS, but they got this wrong.

Craig