RANT TIME!!!!
The E-Stop issue alone is a show stopper in an environment that has workers. This is the underlying problem with all of these cheap approaches, .
Full stop, right there!!!
And this is EXACTLY the correct forum and EXACTLY the correct time to do that full stop.
Y'all may have your opinions, wishes, how-to-do this and that with a retrofit .....
I DO NOT F@CKING CARE TO DO IT ON A MACHINE AND BUILDER which has already established itself as a reliable piece of equipment to have in an industrial environment!
And the jest of what I am saying is this:
One SHOULD NOT want to retrofit a Haas control with anything, and the current people running the Haas software/firmware department SHOULD NOT want to make excuses for
idiotic mistakes that are inherent in the NGC!
I do not have a problem with the MTB charging me $15K for a retrofit of a full control package of a 10+ year old machine. The price is what it is and I have a choice whether to pay it or else.
At the same time I absolutely will not accept any excuses why the new control CANNOT BE MADE TO FUNCTION as the older one it is replacing!
If Haas is listening ( that is Gene Haas ), please review the morons that are running the software / firmware show.
The NGC has potential and I am willing to bet that it can be configured to be used as a retrofit for older machines, but the way it is running or handled by the current crop of programmers
and support personnel is an absolute garbage.
Every new iteration has bugs, and I get that.
But the attitude that is coming out of the new development team OTOH sucks.
Here is the deal: The old control worked flawlessly and reliably. What it could do, it did. What it could not do, it had told you it cannot do. Period, the end.
The NGC on the other hand is a clusterfuck of JAVA garbage written by 20 somethings who couldn't get into working for a "Famous Giant" software firm, so they've ended up
getting an interim job at Haas Automation.
Are you fucking kiddin' me?
Who can possible accept that a CNC control newly built in 2016 cannot keep track of 2 different values that are labelled the same, when it's 25+ year old brother had
no problem doing so?
(For the Haas software people: I am talking about G8x cycles with subroutine calls and your inability to keep tracking the fucking P variables! )
Also, why is the MPG need a second pulse when reversing to be noticed by the control?
Why is the freaking cabinet lighting part of the control logic and need 2 presses to either turn on or off the lights when it is in "sleep" mode?
E-Stop means E-stop! After that the display should still be able to be put to sleep! Right now with E-stop in the display stays on forever.
Ditto for the luber! When the E-stop is in, there should not be any lubrication applied. Ever. PERIOD!!!
RANT-OFF ( for now, going to bed.... )