What do I need Desk CNC to Mach3

[Gary-Wiant]

I recently purchased a used DIY Machine Tool Camp 4'x8' cnc router to use in our Sign Shop, but I haven't taken possession of it yet because I'm waiting on my building to be finished (probably about 3 more weeks) so I've been doing a ton of reading about cnc routing & what I know about the router itself. The controller & consequently the software is DeskCNC.

It seems as though the support for DESKCNC IS all but non-existent, So I'm considering switching over to Mach3. Can anyone tell me what parts & an approximate price to change out the controller & Mach3 software?

I know it uses stepper motors & I can get the actual part numbers if that will make a difference.

Thanks a lot for the help in advance.

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[awerby]

Mach3 should be able to run the DeskCNC controller. All you'll need to buy is the Mach3 license. But to get it running, you'll need to know which pins go to which inputs and outputs. Then you configure Mach3 to match that and it should work.

[Gary-Wiant]

Are you sure it will work? I'd hate to buy the license and it doesn't work. I can get the pin schematic if that is all I need.

How much slower is serial than parallel? Is there anyway of speeding up the data flow which I figure will also speed up the router.

Thanks for the information

Mach3 should be able to run the DeskCNC controller. All you'll need to buy is the Mach3 license. But to get it running, you'll need to know which pins go to which inputs and outputs. Then you configure Mach3 to match that and it should work.

[awerby]

Now that I'm looking it up, there may be a problem. See if you can get someone who has done this to chime in on this thread; they might remember what they did. DeskCNC's controller is like every other one, with a breakout board and some stepper drivers, but it also seems to have another board that sends out step and direction signals through the serial port. Mach3 will run for 500 lines without a license, which is enough to tell if it will work or not. You could try running it with LinuxCNC instead (which is free to download), but you'd need to deal with Linux. Here's some old discussion in this forum about the issue: http://www.cnczone.com/forums/archiv...hp/t-6355.html

You can probably speed up the data flow by avoiding the serial and parallel ports and using a device like the Smoothstepper to create the motor pulses instead and send them through the USB port. But I'm not sure if Smoothstepper has bothered making itself compatible with DeskCNC; you could check with them about that. If it were me, I'd be tempted to chuck out all the old DeskCNC stuff and start fresh with a Geckodrive G540, which works well and is still well supported.

[HCE]

You would have to remove the desk cnc controller and replace with a breakout board to get Mach 3 to function. IMService supports deskcnc IMService.

[louieatienza]

Even the lowly parallel port is eons faster than the serial port. You can get the trial download of Mach3 and a cheap opto-isolated parallel port breakout board.

[A_Camera]

Are you sure it will work? I'd hate to buy the license and it doesn't work. I can get the pin schematic if that is all I need.

You don't need to buy a license just to get started and to test. You can download the demo version and it can be used for testing. It will run a maximum number of codes but is enough to verify that the machine is working.

[Gary-Wiant]

Ok so if it works with the desk cnc will I be able to charge something easily to get rid of the serial port?

[Gary-Wiant]

Has anyone changed from serial to parallel or USB with a DeskCNC controller?

Thanks in advanced