Perry Harrington
Titanium
- Joined
- Oct 7, 2006
- Location
- Klamath Falls, Oregon
Rather than continue to derail the Sister thread (sorry about that), I figured I'd start a discussion here.
Here's the list of CNC controls I've had the, sometimes dubious, pleasure of using:
Bandit CNC
TurboCNC
MaxNC
Dynapath Delta 20
Anilam
Centroid CNC10
1993 Haas
1985 Fadal
Siemens 810T (1988 CHNC-1)
Brother Conversational (TC-211)
Fanuc 18? (early 00' Nak lathe)
Mitsubishi (late 90's Mori lathe)
Mazak (Integrex)
I would rank the top usable controls in this order:
Centroid
HAAS
TurboCNC
Siemens 810T
Brother
Fadal
I happened to do a retrofit of a Shizuoka AN-S with the Centroid control (AjaxCNC) and I really loved it. I was very familiar with Linux at that time, although the Linuxism of it didn't poke through. The fact that you had a filesystem, plenty of RAM, a snappy user interface, a very competent conversational interface, and graphical pre-run, was really productive.
HAAS captured a lot of that usability, but the lack of decent storage and somewhat clunky editing (hey, the handwheel to scroll was really cool), made it a bit less useful. The oddball non-qwerty keyboard was also a bit of a bummer.
TurboCNC is a simple DOS program for stepper based machines, it has a decent editor and is reasonably usable, the fact that it has a real keyboard and filesystem makes it more usable than some. The navigation/jogging was clunky.
The Siemens 810T has a decent interface, has graphical preview, conversational g-code wizards, decent editing, but it's kinda slow. It has not a lot of storage, and it's a little tricky to get used to.
The learning curve of the Brother Conversational control is quite steep, but once you figure it out, it's an awesome control with very high productivity. It doesn't have much in the way of features, but it does a very small subset of general machining, very well.
The Fadal, well is Fadal. The first rev Fadal is like talking to a timeshare of the 1970's. It's not as bad as the Bandit, which is like one of those "learn microcontrollers" kits they sold mail-order back in the late 70's and early 80's.
Here are some notable controls that I'm aware of, which seem to be leveraging new technology and aren't just "a windows computer next to a CNC control" (like the Fadal 32MP was).
HAAS new generation control, this has networking and they have apps to notify you of machine faults and to see the status of running jobs. This is definitely more modern, but still a step away from a proper computer.
Okuma, they've had their Windows based control for many years now. The claim to fame there is the ability to run stuff like MasterCam on the control (which Centroid is doing too with their 5 axis machines) so you can post changes directly at the control.
PathPilot is the newest control from Tormach. While Tormach machines occupy a "deep pocketed hobbiest" niche, the control software is an enhanced version of the Linux based EMC control software. Tormach designed a new trajectory planner and contributed that back to the EMC project. The look and feel is custom Tormach, but many customers have "jailbroke" the control and run the PathPilot software in a window and other programs at the control. One popular addition is a dropbox client so you can drop g-code directly to a shared folder on the control.
NXGEN CNC has produced a Windows based control for Fadal machines. This is a Windows UI with an embedded motion controller. The UI looks a little funky, not as polished as PathPilot, but aimed towards people who are very familiar with existing Fadal user interfaces.
I know Hurco has been running Windows based stuff for a while, and Mori has their own control, but I have not seen the used or have any real knowledge about them, so I didn't speak of them.
To me, I see Centroid and Tormach leading things a little bit, they are both using Linux as the platform for the control, but you can do other things with the control and the controls have connectivity with the rest of the shop.
I would like to see a control that isn't tied to Windows, but acknowledges that we live in a connected world, acknowledges that the control is a full fledged computer, and embraces connectivity, extensibility, and doesn't hold customer hostage with unreasonable resource limits (eg: 1MB program size, unless you pay $$$$).
Here's the list of CNC controls I've had the, sometimes dubious, pleasure of using:
Bandit CNC
TurboCNC
MaxNC
Dynapath Delta 20
Anilam
Centroid CNC10
1993 Haas
1985 Fadal
Siemens 810T (1988 CHNC-1)
Brother Conversational (TC-211)
Fanuc 18? (early 00' Nak lathe)
Mitsubishi (late 90's Mori lathe)
Mazak (Integrex)
I would rank the top usable controls in this order:
Centroid
HAAS
TurboCNC
Siemens 810T
Brother
Fadal
I happened to do a retrofit of a Shizuoka AN-S with the Centroid control (AjaxCNC) and I really loved it. I was very familiar with Linux at that time, although the Linuxism of it didn't poke through. The fact that you had a filesystem, plenty of RAM, a snappy user interface, a very competent conversational interface, and graphical pre-run, was really productive.
HAAS captured a lot of that usability, but the lack of decent storage and somewhat clunky editing (hey, the handwheel to scroll was really cool), made it a bit less useful. The oddball non-qwerty keyboard was also a bit of a bummer.
TurboCNC is a simple DOS program for stepper based machines, it has a decent editor and is reasonably usable, the fact that it has a real keyboard and filesystem makes it more usable than some. The navigation/jogging was clunky.
The Siemens 810T has a decent interface, has graphical preview, conversational g-code wizards, decent editing, but it's kinda slow. It has not a lot of storage, and it's a little tricky to get used to.
The learning curve of the Brother Conversational control is quite steep, but once you figure it out, it's an awesome control with very high productivity. It doesn't have much in the way of features, but it does a very small subset of general machining, very well.
The Fadal, well is Fadal. The first rev Fadal is like talking to a timeshare of the 1970's. It's not as bad as the Bandit, which is like one of those "learn microcontrollers" kits they sold mail-order back in the late 70's and early 80's.
Here are some notable controls that I'm aware of, which seem to be leveraging new technology and aren't just "a windows computer next to a CNC control" (like the Fadal 32MP was).
HAAS new generation control, this has networking and they have apps to notify you of machine faults and to see the status of running jobs. This is definitely more modern, but still a step away from a proper computer.
Okuma, they've had their Windows based control for many years now. The claim to fame there is the ability to run stuff like MasterCam on the control (which Centroid is doing too with their 5 axis machines) so you can post changes directly at the control.
PathPilot is the newest control from Tormach. While Tormach machines occupy a "deep pocketed hobbiest" niche, the control software is an enhanced version of the Linux based EMC control software. Tormach designed a new trajectory planner and contributed that back to the EMC project. The look and feel is custom Tormach, but many customers have "jailbroke" the control and run the PathPilot software in a window and other programs at the control. One popular addition is a dropbox client so you can drop g-code directly to a shared folder on the control.
NXGEN CNC has produced a Windows based control for Fadal machines. This is a Windows UI with an embedded motion controller. The UI looks a little funky, not as polished as PathPilot, but aimed towards people who are very familiar with existing Fadal user interfaces.
I know Hurco has been running Windows based stuff for a while, and Mori has their own control, but I have not seen the used or have any real knowledge about them, so I didn't speak of them.
To me, I see Centroid and Tormach leading things a little bit, they are both using Linux as the platform for the control, but you can do other things with the control and the controls have connectivity with the rest of the shop.
I would like to see a control that isn't tied to Windows, but acknowledges that we live in a connected world, acknowledges that the control is a full fledged computer, and embraces connectivity, extensibility, and doesn't hold customer hostage with unreasonable resource limits (eg: 1MB program size, unless you pay $$$$).