[woffler]

I have set up my new lathe and i am considering a UC100 ,i have had some experience with the smooth stepper USB model and it was a disaster !

I gave it away for free to just get rid of it! does anyone have any experience with the UC 100 pro's con's?

(My main concern is spindle control ), i see that the UC100 allows for a encoder and multiple input pulses and my intention is to hook a rotary incremental encoder with a timing pulley to the spindle shaft for threading and accurate spindle speed control .

I am not sure what the new either net smooth stepper offers in this area as there documentation is awful as always and i am still smarting after the other model of this thing.

[samco]

Have you thought about linuxcnc? You can get a pci mesa 5i25 for $89 that acts like 2 printer ports on steroids out of the box. (34 i/o) and is expandable with daughter cards. Does high speed encoder counting, Pwm, step generation and i/o.

You can use a normal multiline encoder with index (high line count too if you want) This allows for very smooth gearing of the axis to spindle. Things like..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxXGN2SVrhU

or

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7V57_7H9zw






anything i/o
Mesa Electronics

LinuxCNC.org
LinuxCNC Documentation Wiki: LinuxCNCKnowledgeBase

sam

[mactec54]

samco

Nice job the the Linuxcnc & Mesa retrofit

[mactec54]

woffler

The U100 works great, but I have not tried what you want to do with it, the USB Smooth Stepper you had was Toast, I gave it to Greg but don't think it can be repaired

[Marty_Escarcega]

Are you having good luck with the UC100? I want to try one with a Gecko G540 on a small Dyna benchtop mill.

[woffler]

I have purchased booth and i am running some comparisons ,.
The UC100 is easy to set up and is pretty straight forward as installation no problem's there ,there are some function's of Mach 3 that are not supported.

1. Threading is not supported, so for lathe it is a no go!!!!!!!!!! unless you never intend to thread anything
2. The multiple pulse input for index that is supposed to be configurable is not! i wrote to them about this and they blew me off and there was nothing listed in the change log about this.
3. Spindle speed ad- verging is not supported so you would have to set this up with a Desktop and parallel port first! so there are some holes in this controller that need serious consideration.
4.The connection to the thing is kind of bad, it is a small little plug like used on a cell phone for charging and is really flimsy .
I would suggest some kind of mounting to the case of your electronics and a strain relief of the USB cord.

4.Tested running on a p/c desk top with xp run's good ,also tested on a laptop running window's seven 32 bit worked even better .

So for a mill or router it should be fine, accuracy seems fine and smoothness is pretty good so for a little more reliability and smoothness it's a go!

The either Net smooth stepper on the other hand ! i had a lot of trouble with installing it and with two desktop P/C's it would not retrieve the files on start up and had to be started in Boot Mop Mode so bad i had to install a switch on the thing to go from one mode to the other .

I talked to Gregg and Arturo about this and they kind of did not want to discuss this apparent problem with some P/C 's

Another problem that i found, is that with a Shuttle Pro and a ESS after running your set steps per function in Mach with it and you use a MPG to Jog CAUTION HERE!!!! (YOU WILL HAVE A RUN AWAY AXIS ON YOUR HAND'S) i tested and verified this over and over again.

This is a serious safety concern and could cause some serious damage!!!

I finally found a P/C it would work with ,apparently Arturo said it is more sensitive to P/C voltage than what the literature report's so beware of this issue.

So they booth have some issue's ,and apparently these kind of motion controllers are still kind of buggy and need to watched carefully .

Now some folk's have gotten along well with these controllers and i am not saying they are not viable system's they are! but they seem to have a way to go yet.

The plugins seem's to be the big issue with these controllers and how they interact with Mach ,except for the Smooth stepper it has a problem with some P/C 's voltage and this is a board issue that needs to be fixed!

[mactec54]

woffler
U100
i wrote to them about this and they blew me off and there was nothing listed in the change log about this.

Did you contact the manufacture, or just the resellers, The manufacture is very good with correcting any problems, or adding something new, if it is needed

[woffler]

I did contact the folks who made it, in Poland i believe the product is okay except for it's short cummings with lathe and spindle control as i posted previously.

With out the ability to calibrate the spindle to Mach it is kind of useless for some one trying to get going with just a laptop and also the function to select the number of pulses in to the index of the control has gone missing from the plugin!

It is in the litature but not in the plug in that is currently recomended, Sooo! maybe they pulled it for some reason .

And this was one of the questions i asked about and did not get a reply ,i actully bought two of them and sold one after finding this out and i am hoping they come up with a update or i will sell the outher one to!

I believe they are on to something here they just need to fix the functions so they work with Mach 3 the spindle control, such as calibration might be needed by some of us and the index control they said they had .

And threading would be a nice function to have for the lathe folk's, with that you have to have spindle calibration and control or it will not work .

I was kind of hoping this UC100 was going to work out but i guess not, i have been talking to some others in different county's and they have gone to CS lab's and are reporting great result's with there product's ,.

A little pricy but great result's i think i will re- group and i will probably have to upgrade to the new drivers from DMM Tech to go with the 10-10+ signal control to resolve this issue .

[mactec54]

woffler

Your Plug in should look like this, if it does not there is some problem with the download, mine just up dated & everything is good

[Marty_Escarcega]

Here is what John from Automation Technologies has to say:

This is what I know

the UC100 can do lathe threading with a single index pulse, but not with an encoder or a multi pulse.

The UC100 can do:

1.) In lathe mode it can do single pulse per revolution sensored feedback threading, the same way like in the LPT port driver.

2.) In mill mode it can do single or multi slot sensor feedback for the milling motor. The multislot mode is what Mach3 cannot do, it is an extended function of the UC100.

The UC100 cannot do:
1.) In lathe mode threading with multislot sensor.


I'm going to try it on a small Dyna DM2400 with Gecko G540.

Marty

[woffler]

I have again ran this UC 100 threw it's paces this Am ,first i ran the lathe from the parallel port and cut a .5x 13x1. pitch thread cut just fine spindle started ran ran G 76 threading cycle.

I wiped out the UC 100 plugin and re -downloaded it to make sure set back up plugin tested functions spindle control as far as M03 S 500 spindle start's.

Tried to run spindle calibration no dice still does not work ,it shoots a line to the top of the scale and refuses to function will not calibrate.

So the i went to the wizard for Mach 3 threading ,i did not want to use my cam program as to eliminate a ghost there ,these are the result's on a none working machine!

Load g76 from the threading wizard with a .5x13x1 thread routine 12 passes 2 spring passes just to get lot's of passes .

Cycle start, spindle does not start , it should ,. X moves to .6 Z moves to 1.1,next move to X.49 Z0 and everything stops and that is it.

What should have taken place is the spindle started it moved to the clearance of the offset of the tool and then to the first cut position to start the G 76

So it does not work ,either there is a bug in the plugin or these function's are not supported it' s that simple !

I will write to John as one of the UC 100's came from him and the other from CNC4 pc two different suppliers ,this was also tested from two different PC,s

I will invite him to do an actual running test of these functions so as to prove me wrong and explain the difficulties that i am experiencing.

[Marty_Escarcega]

I am interested to hear what you find out. I think you said you contacted the folks that write the software and make the hardware?
Nice concept, very compact. Would be cool if they listen to users and give support and prove that the functions work. I'd like to see a youtube video of it threading on a lathe.
Marty

[cncguy007]

i'm using encoder on my spindle with the UC100. it is a chinese HF water cool spindle with analog control inverter. and the encoder is a disk with 12 slots. it running flawless for a half year now. The UC100 speed up the steppermotors to 2x speed compared to the LPTport. I love it.

[cncguy007]

i'm using encoder on my spindle with the UC100. it is a chinese HF water cool spindle with analog control inverter. and the encoder is a disk with 12 slots. it running flawless for a half year now. The UC100 speed up the steppermotors to 2x speed compared to the LPTport. I love it.

[Marty_Escarcega]

I have again ran this UC 100 threw it's paces this Am ,first i ran the lathe from the parallel port and cut a .5x 13x1. pitch thread cut just fine spindle started ran ran G 76 threading cycle.

I wiped out the UC 100 plugin and re -downloaded it to make sure set back up plugin tested functions spindle control as far as M03 S 500 spindle start's.

Tried to run spindle calibration no dice still does not work ,it shoots a line to the top of the scale and refuses to function will not calibrate.

So the i went to the wizard for Mach 3 threading ,i did not want to use my cam program as to eliminate a ghost there ,these are the result's on a none working machine!

Load g76 from the threading wizard with a .5x13x1 thread routine 12 passes 2 spring passes just to get lot's of passes .

Cycle start, spindle does not start , it should ,. X moves to .6 Z moves to 1.1,next move to X.49 Z0 and everything stops and that is it.

What should have taken place is the spindle started it moved to the clearance of the offset of the tool and then to the first cut position to start the G 76

So it does not work ,either there is a bug in the plugin or these function's are not supported it' s that simple !

I will write to John as one of the UC 100's came from him and the other from CNC4 pc two different suppliers ,this was also tested from two different PC,s

I will invite him to do an actual running test of these functions so as to prove me wrong and explain the difficulties that i am experiencing.

Woffler, did you get any further with your testing? I'm getting ready to start my Dyna DM2400 mill control conversion. Just wanted to hear how you made out.
Marty

[woffler]

I finally got rid of it on the Lathe, after talking to the designer and i believe they have put a note in the literature that it will not work for threading on the Lathe.

It will how ever work for a mill just fine, if all your looking for is spindle speed .

I run with just Mach 3 on a old XP PC works ok, but Mach is unreliable in turn with any version it will thread how ever but never turn your back on Mach turn or it will get you.

Artsoft has no plans on fixing it ,hell they can not even get Mach 4 out the door after several years , not much hope i am afraid.

Sorry Woffler