[Chris Duncan]

Just got it Thursday. Went down to the shippers and picked it up to save a little freight.

There's a few loose screws, some of the little ones. And the main electronics case door didn't shut properly. A little tweaking fixed it though. Had to get a 90deg prong receptacle to plug it in and it took a while to figure out how to start it in manual mode. Turned the key, flicked the switches, nothing.... oh wait, the green button... dohhh. This thing is smooth and HIGH rpm.

Building a controller PC from an outdated Windows box that was in the closet, here's the specs

MB Asus P5P800
Processor Intel P4 630 LGA775 3.0Ghz
4 ct 1GB Corsair DDR1 400mhz PC3200 (4GB total ram)
120gb SATA3 SSD
PNY Nvidia Quadro FX3000
Win XP home SP2

I ran the Mach drivertest.exe and got <4uS interrupt timing variation, so this thing should work. This is with the PC's old install, it's really cluttered with no configuration for Mach. This will be a fresh install, only the minimum software necessary, and configured for Mach per Mach and Tormach.

Tormach wouldn't tell me what MB and processor is in their Controller PC but I found the specs in the sales literature. It's a Core 2 Duo 2.4ghz processor with 1 gig ram.

Now I just have to decide what's the first part to be made.

[GJeff]

Show us pics!
I think the obvious choice would be to start making parts of the actual 770 so you can have a second one

[Scott_M]

Hi Chris
Sounds great !
On your PC.
Be sure and disable "HyperThreading" on that P4. Mach dosen't like it.

Have fun !

Scott

[DiverBob]

The Mach 3 site has good info on recommended computer setup. I've been using an old computer for several years. I don't connect them to the home network or Internet so virus protection isn't needed (I use an iPad if I feel the need for the Internet when in the shop!). Good luck, now the real adventure begins, tweaking and learning the ins and outs of the machine. I won't trade my 770 for anything else!

[Chris Duncan]

The computer is up and running, it sat for so long the clock battery was dead. Apparently the same battery saves the start-up config memory, it kept going to an error message start-up screen. Fresh battery fixed it.

Can't see paying $750 for a 2005 era computer. Although the embedded Windows/Mach install is worth something.

I had everything laying around except for the SSD HD and small form factor case. Here's what it would cost if purchased outright.

Asus 775 Sata MB $50
Intel core 2 duo 2.5ghz $50 used $90 new
small Cooler Master Elite 360 case $50
2 gb ram $45
Vid card $30
60GB SSD $75
DVD drive $30
small keyboard $20
wheel mouse $15
Win XP sp2 $50

$455 total

If you look around you can find a PC like this used at the thrift store for $100 to $150. In Seattle we have RE-PC, recycled PC's for sale. The only thing that typically wears out on used PC's are cooling fans and harddrives. (and clock batteries ;>) An SSD upgrades and solves the HD problem.

This is the easiest install on the planet. XP sp2 usually has the latest drivers already on board. You just connect to the internet long enough to check drivers then disconnect and disable the connection.

Go into the bios and disable hyper threading like Scott suggests

Follow the Tormach and Mach instructions, install Windows in standard PC mode. Disable all start up items and power saving modes.

The final machine is as bare bones of an install as you can get. Nothing in the task bar, no other software except for Mach. This thing starts up and shuts down like lighting compared to a branded PC cluttered with loads of software.

Mach drivertest.exe after new install average <2uS interrupt variation.

[GJeff]

Smart move with the SSD hard drive. I wouldn't run Mach3 without one.

[MichaelHenry]

Smart move with the SSD hard drive. I wouldn't run Mach3 without one.

Just curious, but why not?

Mike

[GJeff]

Because I'm too paranoid about random HD access screwing up Mach3 timing. I'm sure the setups that Tormach sells work fine, but SSD HD's are really an incredible upgrade over SATA and they access data extremely fast and are far less likely to ever cause the types of hiccups that SATA and earlier drives could cause.

Take that with a grain of salt though. I have a lot of SSD vs SATA HD experience but no Mach3 experience. I'm just going off the problems I've heard concerning HD access causing problems - and those seem to be mainly from people who may have been using their computer to do other things while machining or not having a proper lean system setup.

[BAMCNC.COM]

Smart move with the SSD hard drive. I wouldn't run Mach3 without one.

Please google XP and SSD, you will find out quickly why you DON'T want SSD with XP, you need more/Faster RAM, The hard drive does NOTHING for Mach3... Sorry to ruin your day.

[GJeff]

I've had no problems using SSDs on XP.

The SSD upgrade really has nothing to do with "speeding up" Mach3 with the idea that Mach3 is performance bound by HD speed since that obviously is not the case. It's merely an attempt to address an issue that occurs commonly on Windows computers (probably happens on most OSs) where the simplest background hard drive access can cause everything bog down either briefly or enough for you to easily notice. Everything I've read has indicated that Mach3's timing is extremely sensitive to HD access. Obviously Tormach's MachOS version of Windows has as much disabled as possible to minimize the HD access, but the paranoid among us would prefer hardware that's less prone to cause these issues.

[BAMCNC.COM]

I've had no issue with XP and SSD's either, but facts are facts and XP wasn't designed for a solid state drive. I did what I could with settings and such to "help" the SSD though.

[Chris Duncan]

I'll have to make a caveat then. I run SSD's because I'm under the end of an airport and the vibrations ruin disc HD's. The SSD's last longer for me.

But apparently there are issues with XP and SSD's, so if you are going to run them you need to optimize for it.

Now that I think about it, before this build my SSD PC's have always been under Win7, so XP and SSD's are an experiment.

[BAMCNC.COM]

I'm sure it will be fine, just wanted to bring the SSD and XP issue into the light. Win7 and SSD's rock.

[Chris Duncan]

I'm sure it will be fine, just wanted to bring the SSD and XP issue into the light. Win7 and SSD's rock.

I'm glad you brought it up. I had no idea there were issues. Now I can optimize accordingly.

They're working on Mach 4, wonder if it will support Win7?

[BAMCNC.COM]

Wouldn't that be sweet.

[SCzEngrgGroup]

Mach3 v4 WILL work with Win7 and Win8, and it will be an order of magnitude less "fussy" about the PC performance, as it is multi-threaded. So, the trajectory planner will run in its own high-priority thread, and will be essentially unaffected by whatever the user is doing. This is the same architecture already implemented in other controllers, like KFlop. With my KFlop, I can do whatever I want with the PC even while the machine is running, and I have never had a single hiccup. Unlike Mach3, where opening a single app can cause Mach3 to screw up. However, Mach3 v4 does NOT support the parallel port - it WILL require some kind of motion control device like SmoothStepper, KFlop, etc.

Regards,
Ray L.

[BAMCNC.COM]

Let's hope Tormach moves to Mach4

[Chris Duncan]

OK, more problems

Went through the whole Tormach electronics cabinet , there were several loose connections and loose mounting screws. Also found a loose ground screw on the large transformer inside the main column.

While I had the column covers off noticed a substantial amount of metal filings and debris in the ribs inside the column, and this is right above the Y-axis drive screw.

Plugged in the Control PC that I've built and it won't get a parallel connection. Followed the troubleshooting in the manual, nice manual BTW. Tried to run PCNCConfig and XP says I'm missing a file. Call Tormach, they said get it from the net, we load it on our controllers but it doesn't come with the Mach install disc.

Downloaded the missing file and installed. Then ran the Config program and set the parallel port properly, it is the standard port address, 0378. Still no parallel connection. Call Tormach again, they say, if you don't use our controller PC you are on your own.

Getting no red "computer" LED on the control panel. Went into Mach diagnostics. Under "outputs" the "OK signal to Machine" is greyed out.

Checked the parallel connection under XP Device Manager, ECP Printer Port LPT1 properties, driver ok, "this device is working properly".

[TiagoSantos]

Start with the basics - check that you're parallel port cable has all 25 pins wired straight thru - some printer cables don't have all 25 pins connected, or on some weird applications the pins may be swapped around from one end to the other.

So you didn't get their controller, but did you get their "OS"? Or are you trying to use the real Mach3 version? If so, did you get an xml file from Tormach with all the right settings, etc?

[Chris Duncan]

Start with the basics - check that you're parallel port cable has all 25 pins wired straight thru - some printer cables don't have all 25 pins connected, or on some weird applications the pins may be swapped around from one end to the other.

So you didn't get their controller, but did you get their "OS"? Or are you trying to use the real Mach3 version? If so, did you get an xml file from Tormach with all the right settings, etc?

The parallel cable was supplied by Tormach.

Yes got the Tormach Mach OS, when you open the program it splashes the Tormach logo.

Yes did get the .xml file, it was loaded in the config window