- Joined
- Nov 16, 2012
- Messages
- 5,596
Is a Centroid controller out of the question? There is really nothing that competes with Mach3 in price. It might make sense to develop your own house brand, using one of the available, less expensive motion controllers to do the heavy lifting. There are quite a few options available, but I only have personal experience with one brand. In my opinion, direct PC control sucks, at least when using a Windows OS. While my machine is running, I can be working on another CAM file, or actually drawing in a CAD program with no problem.
For simple shapes and patterns, like squaring a block or large facing operations, I will just pop Notepad up and write a quick G-code routine to do the job. I have a few ''canned routines'' that I just change a few parameters in and press GO. If it's too complex, it's easier just to run it through a CAM program, even if I have to go in an do a quick edit.
Hi Jim,
The Centroid units have a great reputation as far as I can tell. The product information is very good and by all accounts, it seems great. It appears though, the kit prices are on-par with the cost of the mill -effectively doubling the price. -That won't go over very well...
The CamSoft package looks very good and I'm tracking down more information on it.
Ray