Advice re upgrading to Acorn from Mach3 and Ess

[dmbgo]

Hi, I have done a bit of looking on the internet recently, and have landed here. I am not an experienced user of lathes and mills, but I do have both, and have been using Mach3 on my lathe (CQ6230) since version 3 of Mach3. It seems like a long time now The mill is a KR-V3000 knee mill. I also have a self built small cnc router.

My use of CNC equipment is intermittent, but I have been playing around with these types of machines since I first built a "Hobby CNC" router back in 2001.

I have realised that Mach3 is, and for a long time has been, near the end of its life, and I think it's time to move on. I bought a Mach4 license, but I'm looking for a "setup and use" type of controller, rather than the hefty learning curve that Mach4 seems to involve.

I am aware that I will have to spend a bit of money to change from my M3 system to Acorn, but I was hoping that I can get some advice about things that I can reuse / adapt, and things that will need to be replaced.

I know that I will need to buy an Acorn controller, which I think uses an ethernet interface. I think that Acorn supports step and direction, which my AC servos already use with M3.

The spindle on my lathe currently uses a Huayang VFD, which will accept a 0-10v input signal, so that should work. The encoder for the spindle only gives a single pulse per rev, so I might need to replace that to enable accurate threading?

I have an XHC WB04B-4 mpg that I currently use with M3, it looks the same as the Acorn MPG, except for the labels on the buttons. Do I need to replace that, or can I use the MPG I already have, if I live with the various button changes?

[dmbgo]

Well I've bought an Acorn now, I hope I did the right thing....

[Dave_C]

Well I've bought an Acorn now, I hope I did the right thing....

You did!

I converted from Mach 3 to Acorn and have never looked back.

Acorn does use step and direction so you are good to go there, the 0-10Vdc is the same for the VFD however the single pulse on the spindle will have to be changed out to a proper encoder if you want to thread or use Constant Surface Speed on the lathe. (It makes great finishes)

Be aware that Centroid uses a much simpler method for calculating the ball screw moves than did Mach 3. Some people try to carry over the old method and the two are not alike.

The difference is like between a tinker toy and a real professional control with Mach 3 being the tinker toy!

Dave C.

[cncsnw]

Constant surface speed does not depend in any way on a spindle encoder.

The spindle encoder is only needed for threading; for feed-per-revolution feedrates (G99); and for display of the actual spindle speed (as opposed to commanded spindle speed).

[Dave_C]

I guess I'm confused these days. I'll stop trying to help and let the alpha dogs have at it.

Have a great day,

Dave C.

Edit:

So you are telling me that when I run a part in Bob-Cad-Cam and I set the feed per rev at .005" and the surface speed to 175 that it can do that without an encoder?

[tblough]

You need it for the feed per rev, but not for surface speed as CNCSNW stated. Constant surface speed depends on the part diameter which the control already knows because you told it when you set your X diameter.

[dmbgo]

Thanks for the replies Dave, Csnw and Tom,
It seems like whether the spindle encoder is used for threading or CSS, or both, that I need a better one. I'll look into that.
Is my existing MPG an elephant in the room that is being studiously ignored, or yet to be discussed?

[tblough]

For your spindle you need at least 1000 ppr differential quadrature encoder. There are quite threads discussing this.

[dmbgo]

Cheers Tom.
I have a couple of encoders on the back of old servo motors, i'll look at them, decide it's too hard, then buy one

[dmbgo]

"Confidence is the feeling you have before you fully understand the situation.
I have CDO. It's like OCD, but the letters are where they should be." are you sure this isn't dyslexia Tom?