Hi stevehuck,

Your description suggests that you are entirely happy with your machine the way it is, you neither need
or want extra functionality, so stick with it.

Craig

Yes I am. The reason for the upgrade would be for the lathe. Mach3 Lathe isn't all that great so I would like to upgrade to Mach4. I run both a lathe and mill from the same computer so I would need 2 motion cards and the software and the driver. After tax, title, and delivery i would have to spend north of 650 bucks to upgrade a $1200 mill and $1400 lathe. I would also have to spend the time to rewire the panel. Not worth the trouble. If it were a simple software upgrade for $250 bucks I would be on board right now. It's just not worth the trouble and expense to have better screens for one of the 2 machines. I'm not knocking Mach4 but there isn't anything in it for me when both machines are running great other than a better looking gui. I just don't need any of the other funtions.

I don't think there's any debate that Mach4 is not better than Mach3. It clearly is, based on everything I've read.

The main reason most people continued with Windows XP even though Vista was definitely better than Windows XP - NOT a smooth Upgrade. Many programs won't work and drivers not ready.
It was Windows 7 (with the free XPMODE for those old programs to run) that won over most XP users.
Same thing with CPUs.
64bits Itanium & Sparc & MIPS & 68000 & even ARM were all better than Pentium 4.
It was AMD x64 design that allows users to continue i386 compatibility that won over the market.
MACH4 needs to provide MACH3 users a smoother migration path - that is all I hope.
Perhaps if ESS or other similar Ethernet motion controller performs & dominates, MACH4 will win over more MACH3 users.
People who use more than one parallel ports could migrate to MACH4 with ESS easily I think. (USB devices will disappoint)
What experience forum members can help is highlight/list a set of hardware that definitely work with (MACH4 + ESS) so that MACH3 users can plan their migration by avoiding incompatible products NOW.
List..
Pendant models, THC hardware models, BOB models, VFD models etc...THAT WORKS with MACH4+ESS.

Hi,

Yes I am. The reason for the upgrade would be for the lathe. Mach3 Lathe isn't all that great so I would like to upgrade to Mach4. I run both a lathe and mill from the same computer so I would need 2 motion cards and the software and the driver. After tax, title, and delivery i would have to spend north of 650 bucks to upgrade a $1200 mill and $1400 lathe. I would also have to spend the time to rewire the panel. Not worth the trouble. If it were a simple software upgrade for $250 bucks I would be on board right now. It's just not worth the trouble and expense to have better screens for one of the 2 machines. I'm not knocking Mach4 but there isn't anything in it for me when both machines are running great other than a better looking gui. I just don't need any of the other funtions.

I personally think that Steve's reply is a perfect example of why Mach4 is not being taken up by Mach3 users in greater
numbers. He has a working solution already and the cost, approx. $650 in his case, to get just one of his machines into
Mach4 is too steep. He also comments ' there isn't anything in it for me when both machines are running great other than
a better looking gui. I just don't need any of the other funtions'. Steve clearly regards Mach4 as a software upgrade with
a better GUI only and no other features that he requires.

I think his comments and opinions are spot on.

My opinion is that Mach4 is a new product, not an upgrade. The new product has really only recently offered new
functionality that the older product (mach3) does not, although the programming flexibility of the new product
well exceeds the older product. As such there has been little incentive for people to buy new, Steve for example.

When or if Steve determines that Mach4 offers functionality that Mach3 cant AND he WANTS those features THEN he will
buy new.

As everyone is aware I am a rabid Mach4 supporter and feel,  mistakenly, that modest uptake of Mach4 by others
smacks as a negative against the software. Modest uptake among existing Mach users simply indicates that there
is nothing extra appealing about Mach4 to induce them to buy new.

Guess what? That's perfectly OK. Mach4 has recently added Surface Map, a script based THC solution and a teach
function intended for plasma ops. These features do not exist in Mach3. I am now of the opinion that Mach4 exceeds
the functionality of Mach3 and anticipate that more users will migrate to it as these and other developments are
released that make Mach4 genuinely more capable than Mach3.

Craig

Functionality of Mach4 vs Mach3 aside, Mach4 runs the machine a LOT better than Mach3. I had an ESS anyway, so the switch didn't cost anything for me. I was reluctant because I have a BP clone with the knee and the quill CNC'd and I use the knee (A) for offsetting tool lengths while using the quill (Z) to machine. It took me a long time in Mach3 to get it to work and I had a lot of help or I'd have never gotten it. So switching to Mach4 meant I needed to figure all that out again and all the guys who helped me originally abandoned Mach3 for new horizons.

One day I was on a Teamviewer with Andy from Warp9 on a Mach3/ESS issue and we got to talking about Mach4. I had installed it but never gotten far. Andy went thru Mach4 and got it all setup in about 10 minutes. When I saw how much better it ran the machine I figured I needed to figure out my tool offsetting and other customization's I used in Mach3. And I did. Took me 6 months with help here and from NFS, but I got there. No looking back now!!

By running the machine better, I mean simple things like hit feed hold. In Mach4, the machine stops right NOW, not a half an inch later. I use a physical pot to control Feed Override, twirl the pot in Mach4, it slows down right NOW, not some time in the future. Soft Limits, Mach4 zooms right up to Machine Coordinates 0 and stops, only deceleration being a factor, where Mach3 slowed down for about an inch as it got closer.

The biggest thing with the switch, other than if you have to spend money, is the mental block. Mach4 isn't Mach3 with a different look. If you try to think it to be Mach3 you'll be disappointed. Like when you type G0 X0 in MDI and hit ENTER and nothing happens! Eighteen months in and I still catch myself doing that one!!

Only thing I miss is the Mach Standard Mill screenset, a masterpiece, but I've gotten over that, too. I've incorporated all Dave Bagby's stuff, all that I actually used anyway, and that isn't now a part of Mach4, into my modified wx4.set, minus the cool green/grey colors.

My 2 cents!

Tom

Hi Tom,
your experience is not dissimilar to my own.

I really switched to Mach4 because of Lua. I was just starting to write code for Mach3 in VB and I hated it, it seemed to have
so many exceptions and quirks that I thought that if I was going to learn a new language at least let it be something other
than VB.

So once I got Mach4....that's when the trouble started....I struggled for quite a while, firstly trying to set up the ESS,
an  operator oversight if truth be known, getting my VistaCNC pendant to work. Then I started to learn Lua, well in truth
its a much about the internal structure of Mach4 and its API as it is about Lua.

I seriously thought that I had made a mistake getting into Mach4 and NFS had made a mistake in using Lua........until
I started having some success. Then it started to make sense and the true power, flexibility even 'elegance' of Lua,
if elegance is an adjective you can apply to a computer language, came clear.

I haven't looked back since.

One of the 'telling' experiences happened when I elected to give a guy on the Mach4 forum a hand to code some stuff
to use Modbus comms to his VFD. I'd never used Modbus before so it was a bit of a battle, but we got there in the end
and I learnt a bunch on the way. A month or two later another guy, a Mach3 user wanted a hand to write some Modbus
comms for his VFD. I thought 'how hard can it be?'. I wish I'd stayed clear! The Mach3 Modbus plugin is atrocious, it works
but is confusing as hell. I'm still bemused as to how I got it to work, I did eventually. I swore I would never touch
Mach3 Modbus ever again.

I've had more opportunities to fiddle with Mach4 Modbus and it is just SO much better, all data transfer between
registers etc.

This is a recurring thing with Mach4. A certain thing (like Modbus) can be done in Mach3 and also in Mach4 but the
Mach4 interface is just so far superior. I have found it difficult if not impossible to relate that to Mach3 users
in any way that they will accept.

Craig