Has anyone ever used or gotten feedback from anyone using this controller board?

@Alex_Paverman +Mike Thornbury Against two such specialists I have of course no more arguments. :wink:

@Peter_Spiess ​ I am no ā€˜specialist’. What I know it’s what I learned in school and I practiced with on hands. I think (maybe in a limited way) that things must not be expensive.
It just was a nice debate, nothing personal. :slight_smile:

@Alex_Paverman I’m not sure what is so complex about Mach - it is supposed to interpret and parse gcode… vs grbl which does the same thing, with the same command set.

Mach3 is typical vertical-market software - only works with approved hardware, hardware and software are intrinsically tied, you need a license and you need to renew it or your application says No.

Technically, it has had some non-core CNC bells and whistles thrown at it to allow you to save preferences, easily work out rates, etc., but nothing I don’t have on a spreadsheet or via an app like CNC machinist handbook.

I use both monolithic CNC software and things like Chilipeppr. I don’t see any functional advantage with Mach3 - it doesn’t give me any more control over my machine. It does make some tasks easier as theres a lot of non-machining tasks in the interface, but you pay a significant sum to have that facility, plus the cost of a PC, a controller card, a set of motor drivers.

I understand that it was the way to go ten, five years ago, but things have moved on. I want to do other things with a PC than have it work as a dedicated CNC controller. In essence, the alternative to an integrated card like a Smoothie or TinyG is a PC, interface card, a driver controller and the drivers.

Of course if you need high amps, you will be using external drivers as well, but for most hobbyist implementations, 2-2.5A is more than adequate.

I suspect a lot of the pushback is from comfort - a lot of machinists know Mach3, therefore thats what they want to use. For someone coming new to the field, given a choice of Mach or Chilipeppr, it will be the one thats the easiest to use and the cheapest implementation that gives the desired result.

You say the software isn’t there, but I see toolchains like Autodesk’s Fusion 360 creating and submitting GRBL-compatible gcode directly to the queue for something like Chilipeppr or UGS and it works great. Design - make. It doesn’t get much easier than that.

@Mike_Thornbury ​​, you may be right, ā€˜simplier’ is what one nows best, what is accustomed to. For one entering CNC’s world and not having skills with Linux and PI’s, it will be easier to go with Windows & MACH (or similar). But I understand what you’re saying: MACH is the past. As am I… :thinking:

@Mike_Thornbury ​, I am looking for 2 days now, hoping to find some software the kind you are saying. Something for a PI ARM linux machine. Can you give me a hint, please?

@Alex_Paverman Hey Alex,

I kinda caught your correspondence in the middle so I’m not sure if I’m right, but if you are talking about Chilipeppr, you don’t need extra software, just go to Chilipeppr.com. They also have a great user group here on google who could help you. As for software, you can download Fusion 360 from autodesk’s website. Though it isn’t necessarily freeware, you can use it so long as your business makes less than $100 K per year. You likely know about Fusion (similar to Solidworks) from what I’ve heard about solidworks-which seems to be, or have been the industry standard CAM software (other than Mach 3).http://Chilipeppr.com

Chilipeppr or UGS or LaserWeb/CNCWeb will work with a Pi. You can use LinuxCNC as well, although not ON the Pi, just use the Pi as a SPJS client for sending the code to.

I have used Chilipeppr and UGS with an ESP8266 and ESP32 to send wirelessly and it worked perfectly, as long as your Websockets buffer is big enough, theres no problem with comms as it can hold upwards of a few thousand GCODE strings in its buffer.

But… it isn’t trivial to get working. Easier just to buy a $25 Orange Pi Lite2 (which totally kicks the Pi3B+'s ass) and use it to control your CNC motion controller, either wirelessly or via Ethernet.

Heck, I’ve even controlled a Smoothieboard by bluetooth and it worked great.

http://chilipeppr.com
https://winder.github.io/ugs_website/
http://www.linuxcnc.org
https://plus.google.com/communities/115879488566665599508

Thank you @George_Allen . Solidworks is what I am already using (for intricate projects things). I know http://Chilpeppr.com and I admit Chillipepr can be a solution. My NEMA23 use 3A which is the limit for Chillipepr, but I’m thinking to use it @ a new project I’m planning. But I was looking for some solution with Linux/ARM devices (like Raspberry Pi, or Orange Pi). I thought that @Mike_Thornbury (which seem to be savvy on this subject) knows something about.