Finally had enough of MACH 3 and thinking about Acorn - First question

[Chris D]

Hello all,

The reason for being done with Mach s has to do with reliability (and safety) related to running complex Macros. I have had several really nasty crashes/run aways and am just fed up with the deep dark bugs. I have not heard much of anything good about MACH4, in fact, mostly bad stuff about it so that isn't much of an option. I have been working with, selling, supporting, operating industrial CNC machines since the 70s. Up until now I was willing to tolerate the "quirks" of hobby CNC controls but it is time to move on.

My machine(s) are for the most part basic 3 axis routers and a 2 axis lathe. My mill is my tinker toy and I do a lot of modifications, experiments, etc and right now I am (was) working a tool change system for it. This tool changers requires extensive macro programming to do things the way I want it to. Within the tool change mechanism is an "intelligent" stepper drive to control a motor. I communicate with the drive using MACH 3's macro language's serial output command.

Is there a way with Acorn to output serial data?

Thanks in advance for any and all help!

Chris D

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[upnorth]

You should ask this question over at the Centroid website. They have a specific forum for acorn support. There are some very knowledgeable people there who can give you an answer. I do know that the acorn will support a turret. I have not done it yet and it's a bit over my head.

Like you I got frustrated with Mach 3. I installed an acorn and so far it has worked well. The quirks that I had with Mach 3 are gone. The reliability has been great. The acorn is not as versatile as Mach 3 but what it does it does reliably.

[Quebecois_Sti]

Didn't saw anything regarding Serial communication with Acorn. However, there's a board Ether1616 adding alot
of Inputs/Outputs (up to 56) that have a Serial connector (SERIAL 1) on it but they doesn't seems to talk alot about it in
the documentation...

https://www.centroidcnc.com/centroid...etup_guide.pdf

It seems some people are able to do ATC system with the Acorn but maybe not exactly working like you wanted to...

[joeavaerage]

Hi,
I've been using Mach4 for six years and it light years ahead of Mach3. Reports that Mach4 is poor tend to be made by people whom aren't prepared
for the learning curve, and there certainly is one.

Craig

[mactec54]

Didn't saw anything regarding Serial communication with Acorn. However, there's a board Ether1616 adding alot
of Inputs/Outputs (up to 56) that have a Serial connector (SERIAL 1) on it but they doesn't seems to talk alot about it in
the documentation...

https://www.centroidcnc.com/centroid...etup_guide.pdf

It seems some people are able to do ATC system with the Acorn but maybe not exactly working like you wanted to...

Does not get any better than than no matter what control is used

[suntravel]

ATC logic for different types is build in Acorns PLC.

Dokumentation:

https://www.centroidcnc.com/centroid...C_Programs.zip

Uwe