I am going to have to say I think that is irrelevant. I have not heard any suggestions that any of these Chinese variants use anything other than the LPT port design.
But I might be wrong.
Cheers
Roger
Yer when he first got his machine he had a hell of a time getting it to work then found out it was built for 32 bit it's what skyfire use to use, it's in the thread ger locked about the skyfire machines
<img src="https://ivxo1q-dm2305.files.1drv.com/y4mENMmTr_Cabc7pR0FUdB6gtbADq2JbuG4_rGy0eBQvLJx19pTi6TqMUIJN0xgOyDIc0gWoxYhS38HpbSTFGdfaK-o42IOU6jczrhDpfpCOTNGL1X6hvZCbgj0y35gqmq1YGTrWwShYGV-C7lXA2esy0Pi_WfnBSyroDLSGXwce4uSr1U7op7srdi78rispHCa_K4aFlTlJPVkkNWMfgh_Tg?width=60&height=60&cropmode=none" width="60" height="60" />
Being Disabled is OK CNC is For fuN
I am going to have to say I think that is irrelevant. I have not heard any suggestions that any of these Chinese variants use anything other than the LPT port design.
But I might be wrong.
Cheers
Roger
Gulp........I hope Mach 3 continuous to function.....it's working so good at the moment........well, for the hypothetical programs I cut air with, but will eventually move onto the real deal with a job or two when I finally feel confident that the G code I write is moving in the right direction.
The electronics for the mill is a module piggybacked on top of a module and the USB cord is terminated behind the module that itself is screwed to the back of the inside cabinet wall.
A small as it is, the whole shebang would have to be removed to get at anything.
Here's a pic of the electronics in the cabinet as it was being built at the time by Defeng.....probably my machine even......I have a similar photo, but in too high a resolution, so it won't download.
The second pic for reference is of the electronics in the smaller column mounted cabinet on a mill that is not in an enclosure....it still has a lot of wiring to wade through....to pull out and put back without a huge gain in the process if the UCCNC or later Mach4 was just for evaluation purposes.
Ian.
I hope Mach 3 continues to function
I cannot see ANY reason why it will not. Just keep several reliable backups for the sources.
The PC side of things is another matter. Mach3 likes WXP SP3 and W7. It is less enamoured of later versions. However, I do not see this as ever being a problem, even if you current machines all die. All you need is a (genuine) W7 CD with serial number (or even a WXP CD), and a local PC shop which can put together a system to your needs. You would get them to install W7 off your CD as well: that way they have to check out all the drivers for you. You will not get a real LPT port as most of the plug-in cards won't work as needed, but an ESS off the ethernet port WILL work. I cannot see any problems for the next 10 years.
Eventually, one day, the X86 motherboards will become hard to get. The X86 is an utterly gross abortion of a non-design, and even Microsoft are starting to head in the ARM direction. But industrial X86 motherboards will be made for a l o n g time. There is a market.
What you will find as you modify/update the electronics is that the number of cables inside the box will grow - and grow. Neat and tidy AND labelled AND documented works there. I reckon well spread out is the best, rather than all stacked together.
Cheers
Roger
Yes....10 years in the future......who knows.
The least I want to do with diving and delving into the innards is to mount the stepper driver for the 4th.....luckily there is a place on the panel with screw holes just for that purpose...... and the controller VFD for the high speed spindle that came with the mill.
BTW....just to digress....the ER11 chucks with short 16mm diam parallel body I bought for small drill holding are a beut to hold in the ER32 chucks....specifically for the 1 to 7 mm drills etc, and at $7.50 very cheap and very compact.....the collets were cheap too at $12 for a 13 piece set 1mm to 7mm at 1/2mm steps
Ian.