The link posted in reply #12 is broken.
The current discussion involves that of a dissatisfied user of Centroid with that of a user having an opposite opinion. The 'food fight' asside, I would hope that this thread provides insight and guidance to ANYONE who intends to buy a machine controller and to do a retrofit.
There will always be clients who swear by and those who swear at a product - we seem to have two here. This does not mean that the product, per se, is junk. However, it does indicate that no one can please everyone all the time.
We were in the market to do a lathe retrofit last summer. The whole project got put on hold when we learned as a result of postings on the 'Zone in concert with a lot of research on our own that there was not a lot of hardware out there that would suit our needs. At the time, Centroid seemed like the best option.
However, as anyone who does a "lathe retrofit" search on this website will learn, our experiences as well as those voiced by other alleged Centroid customers, made us think twice, no 3 times about using that particular product.
We didn't stop there. We looked into MDSI, Camsoft and god knows who else. NOBODY and I do mean NOBODY had a bolt on controller that didn't need some programming written or some other show stopper that I'd think would have been relatively idiot proofed in the operating system.
All we wanted was a simple control that would bolt on and run G code in order to do simple turning and spacing and an occasional threading operation, over and over and over - to some extent, what an Expath or Fanuc 5T does, namely, make simple parts.
Centroid wanted me to trash all my like new 7 amp, 140VDC Fanuc servos because their servo amps (well within the Fanuc motor rating) "wouldn't work". They then offered to have their local rep call to help with selecting the retrofit parts - almost 2 years later, he still hasn't called. The horror stories shared by some of the posters in the "lathe retrofit" thread merely cemented my decision, namely, do something different.
MACH was out of the question. I contacted them and they could not/would not support the interfacing of their product with SERVOS. I was not in the mood for a science project, I only wanted to make parts on a day to day business.
For this reason, I could NOT take the chance of using a hobby oriented system that I could not get on-site support for - the use of message boards is OK for DIY hobby use but suicide for a business that relies on the machine running and making parts.
The lesson here is to investigate your supplier. Be forewarned that you won't always get the straight story, either way. In cases where you can get info, you can usually make out enough of a picture to judge if the product will meet your needs and, more importantly, satisfy your expectations.
In this case, we have examples of users who have each had differing experiences.
My advice is this: if you are not interested in nor capable of doing machine development (perhaps writing code, doing wiring, some engineering), stay away from so called "kits" - they are never plug and play. Either plan on tinkering or finding someone who will install the kit and make it run FOR YOU.
Oh, one more thing: if the guy who does sell and install the kit won't certify and demonstrate the operation of ALL the promised features BEFORE taking final payment (hold some in escrow or some other enticer), think twice about doing business with them.
Nothing like buying a white elephant that doesn't work and then being told by the sales guy "sorry, I can't help you" after he's cashed your check and you have a POS that doesn't work. Where have we seen that scenario before???? |