Acorn <> mach4 comparison (lathe / turning)

[robertspark]

I've got to ask this as someone recommend the use of a centroid acorn for a lathe / turning application.

Whilst I FULLY appreciate the benefits of hardware and software designed for each other, and proactive development, I am trying to understand what benefits the centroid acorn could bring with its pro lathe / turning application over mach4 turning.

The plan is to upgrade an old CNC lathe, complete with quadrature encoder for the spindle.

I already have to hand a mach4 hobby licence (unused at present) and various mach4 compatible motion controllers (an ESS (don't go there!!!), But a much more promising pokeys 57E which apparently does offer quadrature encoder use for spindle speed sync)

So, I'm sort of having a hard time justifying a switch from what I have to hand to the acorn with a pro licence, so I'm looking for a bit of guidance as to the pros the centroid acorn + pro lathe licence could offer.

This is a simple small lathe, two axis, no turret control, and I don't plan on an atc as I'm likely to use multifix tool changers

http://medw.co.uk/storage/attachments/3 ... Small).jpg

I've got a new vfd to go on it to hand and was hoping to use modbus to enable and control it or that at least was the current thought process

I guess it comes down to maybe wizards and canned cycles?

(I'm not new to CNC, but work mainly with plasma using a non mach3/4 solution, but they don't offer a turning application, hence my search)

Thanks for your time and guidance

Rob

[Dave_C]

(an ESS (don't go there!!!)

Rob, that comment surprises me as the ESS gets ride of the parallel port and uses the ethernet which speed things up considerably. I used one on my 12x36 Lathe under Mach3 for 4 years and loved it. I just recently converted to Acorn and added an encoder. Not done just yet!

Dave C.

[DICKEYBIRD]

Whilst I FULLY appreciate the benefits of hardware and software designed for each other, and proactive development, I am trying to understand what benefits the centroid acorn could bring with its pro lathe / turning application over mach4 turning.

You said it all right there! Centroid's software was stable & commercially proven long before they decided to start the Acorn hardware project. Acorn is relatively new to the market but it's been my observation that Centroid is very committed to supporting its product. The normal hiccups & glitches that come along with any new product are handled remarkably well. When all us previously Mach-centric Acorn owners have properly oriented ourselves to the Centroid system, we will be much happier. I'm not there yet but am working on it!

ps: My lathe is a converted ORAC too, nice machine. They make good stuff up there in sunny Brighouse!

pps: Your ESS & Pokeys should easily sell to help out with the cost.

[robertspark]

DaveC & Dickeybird, thanks for your replies

Dickeybird, I've seen your Orac posts / threads with interest, thanks very much for taking the time with them and photos (worth a 1000 words).

I didn't want to complain over the shortcomings of the competition (as they won't get a chance / come here to defend themselves). That being said I was a dedicated supported of the Smooth Stepper for some time, started out with a USBSS, then upgraded / changed to an ESS when I realised that Torch Height Control was not available for the USBSS, at the time I needed it, and development looked stagnant on the USBSS. Then I looked from Mach3 to Mach4, given Mach3 is long time no longer developed, and Warp9 were just painfully slow at development and even answering their own forum (check my posts on there I was a huge promoter and assistant on queries), but the development cycle is just way too slow....... I came to the realisation that when you buy something (motion controller , software etc) in the CNC world, you buy it as it is and just forget the aspirations of the developer as that may never come to fruition.... or at least not in the time frame of my expectations. Hence caveat emptor (buyer beware).... do you research beforehand! It is what it is NOW and not what it could be especially when you have no input / ability to affect its development.

I ran a small router with Mach4 and the ESS, but my main application is plasma, hence looked for something else as I wanted something with M62/M63 which was not available at that time + Mach4 THC integration, which also was not available with the ESS.

I run UCCNC and am very happy with it for plasma {+ mill /router} it does everything I need, and it is very well supported by the developers with regular development cycles and new features / implementations, but like the acorn it will only run with their motion controllers (UC100, UC300 & UC400), hence it works and their scope for bugs is limited by the hardware it runs on. (It also does not need high spec PC's like the acorn / centroid seems to (minimum single core performance >1500) {yes sorry sarcasm / criticism as I cannot see why it does as the acorn is afterall still just a motion controller and does not require the pc for any realtime timings {I've dabbled with linuxcnc too and have a working plasma setup}

I've got a PC which is setup for linuxcnc with a realtime kernel patch and it runs fine with a MESA 7176E {not parallel port which would require higher / more accurate timings, there are 2 clocks in LinuxCNC (servo thread 1msec clock cycle, and a "base thread" 25uSec), only the servo thread critical timing is required with the MESA 7i76E, hence that is what govens the PC spec, and it still runs a realtime kernel. Hence it looks like with the Acorn, I run the risk of "potentially" having to upgrade PCs too, which I don't see the point in / justification for at the moment. Out of interest.... my single core performance is reported as being 471..... well below the 1500 ..... but given the PC (fanless) does not run anything but cnc applications and only 1 at a time on an SSD , with 8gb of ram, with W10, i'm a little lost about why the CNC12/acorn would require anything any faster at the moment

(LinuxCNC runs off a seperate HDD, switched at boot time, same PC though)