Mach 3
Posted: Thu Jan 07, 2021 4:14 pm
Can mach 3 be used with shark cnc's ?
The simple answer is "no".
The longer answer is "yes", but you're essentially removing all of the Shark's movement electronics.
Mach3 runs in a PC, with some interface card. That used to be a parallel port card, but Windows
starting with version 8 stopped allowing drivers to directly access the underlying hardware. Unfortunately,
Mach3 requires that ability to be able to issue stepper pulses fast enough.
So, in the current world, either you need an old PC and an old Operating System, or....
you can use a current PC but with an ethernet-cable based wiring system.
But, in either of those cases, you're going to be replacing the actual motor drivers, which means
a new power supply, and new driver boards for each axis.
So yes, I suppose the shark CNC could be run by Mach 3, but it's not a plug-and-play
thing at all.
Regards,
Rando