Centroid CNC Software Licensing Upgrade Announcement

[cncian]

To put the price in perspective think about this. This $79 is the price of ONE carbide endmill.

To put things in perspective, this is 45% of the Mill Pro license for Acorn! You don't like this perspective, do ya'?! ...

[suntravel]

To put the price in perspective think about this. This $79 is the price of ONE carbide endmill.

To put things in perspective, this is 45% of the Mill Pro license for Acorn! You don't like this perspective, do ya'?! ...

Now you can see how cheap the initial pro license is

The point is DIY CNC is not a million seller and the excellent work to improove it must pay of for the people at Centroid.

That is way better as others with decades between updates that are also not free of charge except for LCNC maybe...

Uwe

[cncian]

Totally agree, Uwe! Just wanted to tease our friend a little bit!

[fusion]

No one likes change or spending money they didn’t plan on. But it’s still a tremendous value.

[cnckeith]

I think this change is long overdue. There is no other company that I am aware of that has offered the support that Centroid has offered. There has to be a financial incentive for Centroid to continue to improve their products and offer the ongoing support they do on this forum. $79 is more than reasonable in my mind. Good on you Keith for keeping it real.

bullseye.

[cnckeith]

One thing I think that would be helpful is if you offered paid "updates". Something like a XX dollar charge for centroid to take a report from an older system, and send you back a working report for the latest offering. The tech's should be really quick at it, and lots of people don't want to start from scratch setting up their machine.

I like this idea a lot!

its always been offered, here is the link.
https://shopcentroidcnc.com/centroid-fa ... l-support/

[cnckeith]

Thanks for replying Keith.

can you clarify more on the probe licensing now wireless probing has been officially added to ultimate? i have oak with a pro license and my wireless probe and wireless TT work 100% fine. if i upgrade to 5.30 is it going to stop working and force me to buy ultimate? are there any enhancements in this new wireless probing ultimate offering that would encourage me to buy ultimate? it just says wireless probing now supported.

currently i have the probe/tt receiver enable wires hooked to 1616 outputs coupled to vcp aux keys and a bread board i made with some relays that feed probe detect INP771 INP772 when i activate either probe via the aux keys, it also has a mosfet circuit i built to invert the probe signal from NC to NO as INP769 is not easily invertible as far as i'm aware unless you get inventive in the plc and invert the logic wherever the probe is in play.

cnckeith "Frankly, everytime a user buys a $7K wireless probe from Renishaw they are on the phone/email support with us for weeks trying to get the thing to work and/or learn how to use it. we don't make a dime on these deals and need a few bucks to be able to support our customers that choose to use third party gear. so what we've done is added features in CNC12 to better more easily directly support 3rd party wireless probes, such as probe ready signals, wireless probe detect, wake on spin etc..etc.. and they are included in the Ultimate License.

about your wireless setup, you created hardware/PLC and Macros to work with a wireless probe, great! that is the spirit of DIY, you don't have to use the new wireless memory locations in CNC12 if you don't want to, there are always several ways to get things working. for those that want support, instructions on using the canned Centroid curated Wireless Probe method all we ask is you purchase the Ultimate License.

correct me if im mistaken, doesn't acorn/acorn 6 also get all those features you just listed plus the ones you removed not applicable to oak for less money? shouldn't acorn 6 drop into the oak/a1dc/hickory bracket? it can do closed loop if you add the encoder board and it feels like closed loop is the differentiator here on upgrade price.

honestly $179 really isn't a bad price for a major upgrade package i'm just complaining because acorn gets so much for so little money, but at the same time i also have another acorn controlled machine so i shouldn't complain . you must be talking about the Wizard? The oak can do a lot more than Acorn.

you can just tell me to shut up and hand over the money i wont be offended you guys are angels compared to the bandits at autodesk what i have to pay them has more than doubled in the last couple of years and they have dropped some gnarly bugs in exchange for my loyalty.

[AshG]

"Frankly, everytime a user buys a $7K wireless probe from Renishaw they are on the phone/email support with us for weeks trying to get the thing to work and/or learn how to use it. we don't make a dime on these deals and need a few bucks to be able to support our customers that choose to use third party gear. so what we've done is added features in CNC12 to better more easily directly support 3rd party wireless probes, such as probe ready signals, wireless probe detect, wake on spin etc..etc.. and they are included in the Ultimate License.

about your wireless setup, you created hardware/PLC and Macros to work with a wireless probe, great! that is the spirit of DIY, you don't have to use the new wireless memory locations in CNC12 if you don't want to, there are always several ways to get things working. for those that want support, instructions on using the canned Centroid curated Wireless Probe method all we ask is you purchase the Ultimate License.

that's good that you actually added probe ready signals, wireless probe detect, wake on spin etc..etc.. it was a shortcoming on the system, it would certainly have made implementation lots easier for me

I was concerned it would break what i had done to essentially fool the system with hardware to think i'm using wired probes to get it to work, so i think it will be okay as is for now. my solution isn't that elegant but it works for me. Any not ready/error signal/low battery from the probe results in my probe detect input relays going open and can then be handled as probe not connected, the control is quite oblivious to what the exact fault may be so cant do anything elegant or display a very useful error message. i actually have the dumber omi-2h receiver without the factory error output wires, that's been a little bit modded (was a beggars cant be choosers situation i don't have $7k to blow on a probe, i yanked it from a scrapped HAAS)

has the documentation been updated to cover wireless probes? I'd like to read more about it, I'm interested in the proper centroid implementation, the main driver for me to upgrade is to add probeapp to the system to improve probing workflow. Its inevitable at some point i will have to buy ultimate plus if i ever finish building my 5th axis, which i'm saving up for (2 kids in daycare keeps me poor )

With regard to the price of the renishaw probe system 7k is what they ask new and its very unrealistic for most running older machines on a retrofit control.

The reality is people can pick up the omp40 probe, ots tool setter and the omi receiver used/refurbished from auction or a scrapped machine for around the same price of a new KP-3 & TT-4 setup and i think that may be what is happening. It is very tempting for many that are looking to do in process probing without having to keep reconnecting wires mid job. I suspect its why your are seeing more support requests the price of entry on wireless probes has come down to the average small shop guy. Many people would like centroid to release an affordable plug and play wireless probe, honestly the renishaw was a pain to make work and the drewtronics wireless ones don't compare to a centroid wired, tried that on my acorn .