đź‘€ New Controls "Unofficial" Launch

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Hey everyone! I thought you might all be interested in a new product we quietly launched last week:

https://www.avidcnc.com/avid-cnc-ex-control-system-features-and-benefits-p-1397.html

I’m calling this the “unofficial launch” announcement because we’re still finishing up our media, documentation, and final preparations to ship these things. I thought you folks here on the forum would appreciate a bit of a sneak preview of what’s coming up, and to answer some of your questions.

With that let’s get into what we did: We swapped our entire controller lineup from Mach 4 and the Ethernet Smoothstepper to Centroid’s Acorn control system. This has been a HUGE undertaking for us that has consumed every corner of this company.

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Why did we do this?

In short: To set us (and you!) up for the future. We took a long hard look at things that you all have asked us to do, and took a long hard look at the platform we had to do those things on. In the end we decided that using an industrial grade controller was better than trying to soup-up our existing controls.

Whats new and exciting in this new control?

A book could be written on this, in fact we have several people here on staff writing enough text to fill a book! For now though I can give you a few highlights:

  • All new plasma! Centroid has a VERY robust and reliable plasma system. These new controls have excellent THC capability,optical isolation, and a host of new software features.
  • A revamped tool measurement system AND a brand new touch plate utility all new controls will ship with a fixed “tool height offsetter”. This will measure each tool as you use it which will let you get even more accurate Z measurements. This will unlock a ton of functionality for setting up jobs and swapping tools mid job with no need to Z touch, check it out in this video:
  • Servos! I probably should have led with this one, but you read that right: We are selling servo systems now as an option for EX controllers! These are Teknic Clearpath close loop brushless servos. They’re fast, quiet, and reliable. Our friend Mark Rober has already been using them:

  • Wireless Pendant We now have a natively supported wireless pendant. This thing just rocks:

(Available for order right here)

I bet you have a ton of questions, I’ll try to preemptively answer a few here. But please do ask anything you’d like here!

  • Do I have to buy a new machine to get this new system?

No! We worked very hard to make this backwards compatible with our existing machines. A stepper to stepper conversion can be done in a few hours as all of the cabling is re-used. A stepper to servo upgrade does require additional wiring. We do provide all of the cabling for you along with detailed instructions

  • Do I need to learn new software to use this new system?

Yes and no. The control interface is CNC12 instead of Mach 4. We took Centroid’s software and made it friendlier to use. Machine setup is guided in a similar way to Mach. Your CAM software like Fusion 360 and Vectric can still be used. Did I mention you can now use Vectric with plasma? We also have leveraged full 4 axis indexing and rotary with Fusion 360.

  • What’s it going to cost?

That depends on the system you want, check the link at the top of this post for up-to-date pricing. For existing customers of full controllers, we are offering a trade-in program for folks that want to get credit for their existing system, and can also provide Centroid-based stepper systems using refurbished components at a reduced cost. Contact our support team for pricing details.

  • Does my (insert Avid CNC accessory) work with it?

Yes! Laser works, rotary works, plasma, etc. And in all cases we’ve made things functionally better!

  • I don’t have an Avid CNC machine but this system looks awesome, can I buy just the control?

Yes! we will be publishing schematics and a technical guide so you can adapt our controls to your custom machine.

We have started taking orders for the new system. We expect these to start shipping towards the end of August. If you’d like to place yours you can do so right here or by contacting us.

I’d love to hear what you all think, and please do ask any questions you have!

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I think this is a fantastic step in the right direction - which is to say, away from Mach4 and towards more configurable controllers. I wish I had had the chance to order this, considering my pro 4x8 arrived a month ago, but either way this is a great move.

Any fun things in the pipeline accessories-wise for the new control?

or, are there any capabilities within the Acorn control that you’re excited about?

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We are doing a trade in/refurb program on controls since they are backwards compatible with any of our machines. I don’t know all of the pricing details bur our support team can tell you. It wouldn’t hurt to ask and they’d be happy to help.

Yes, we’ll have more to talk about soon but like I eluded to in the first post here this system sets us up to do some really cool things soon. The laser support in Centroid is awesome, it can handle millions of lines of code at once so image rasters work great. The expansion cards they offer for it allow you to plug and play tons of extra IO for all kinds of things. They have a lot of build in software for ATC, and the list goes on.

Let me flip this question back around to you: Now that we have this platform that’s ripe for adding things to, what would excite you the most?

Aside from what’s in the first post, this new control acting like an “appliance” is actually really exciting. That might sound kind of boring, but what it means is that this control works the same way every time you use it. It doesn’t have a “bad day” it doesn’t work well for one job and then behave differently on the next job, this control just works.

I’d say my other favorite thing is the smoothing. This control features “S Curve” acceleration. This means when the machine starts off from a dead stop it creeps up a little and then “hits the gas” to accelerate the mass of the machine. This results in WAY smoother cuts compared to Mach. I have both a Mach control and a Centroid control here in my shop and the difference is night and day.

I’m working on a video now showing that, I’ll post it when it’s ready.

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Okay, guys, I would like to know why someone (who ordered a new machine) in the last 30, 60, or even 90 days was not informed of this upgrade. As it looks right now, I would like to upgrade it. But that means I’m going to have to send my current equipment back to you to get a credit to go ahead and move forward. What a royal pain.If I was aware of the upgrade. I could have just waited a month. (And then there’s the mach4 that I wouldn’t have purchased)
Please consider this moving forward with people who are buying the machines. If you have a major upgrade, tell them to wait—or at least give them the option.

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Can you give the pro an con of the stepper vs servos? And thank you for the preview of what’s to come.

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In general, servos are faster, quieter, run cooler, and use less power than steppers, as well as never losing a step. However, they’re more expensive and trickier to tune, typically requiring special driver hardware and software. IIRC you can also run them at higher accelerations if you’re willing to accept some “following error” when doing so.

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I hear you, it’s really tough with big projects like this because there’s a lot of moving parts. We have a policy here of releasing products when they’re ready instead of hitting a particular date. Given that this launch has involved every corner of this company, the whole supply chain, software development across three companies, etc that ship date was not clear until everything came together and we were ready to do it. Even now new systems aren’t shipping for several weeks.

What you have is a good and well supported system that will perform well for many years.

If you are interested in upgrading to the new system we are doing a trade in program. I don’t know what the pricing is on it but it might be worth talking to support to see what the options are.

In a nutshell: Steppers are dumb (but good!) Steppers just do what they are told, and if they can’t do what they’re told the controller has no idea… Servos are “closed loop” more on that later…

So what this means practically is if you push them (steppers) too hard they can lose position and your work can get ruined.

This doesn’t mean steppers are bad, it just means if you’re trying to push the limits of them you have to gradually work up to the fastest you can push them. I ran stepper based systems in production for a while in my shop and they were great. I just had to figure out what the limit was by sacrificing a few parts along the way :slight_smile:

Our servos have more power over our steppers, but the key thing they have is closed loop. This means if you tell them to do something and they can’t do it they instantly feedback to the controller. The controller will halt motion and alert you so you can fix the problem, re-home and you’ll likely save your work.

This means that you can run them pretty aggressively and have the protection of closed loop. They’re also very quiet, and use “hard stop homing” which is a very accurate way to home the machine.

This is how hard stop homing works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLUKn59T1GQ

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We did all of that for you. They come pre-tuned

We have these tuned so that is not an issue

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THAT is going to save a lot of headaches! Thanks!

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You’re welcome! Tuning is a pretty involved process. This video isn’t us, but it shows how you start out. We did the same thing he did: Auto tuning, but it didn’t end there!

Auto Tuning will work really well, but we had some pretty specific requirements for how we wanted these to perform and Teknic really helped us out with those. I definitely hooked some weights up to a machine like James did, and at one point I had an extra spindle clamped to a machine to simulate a dual spindle machine. We stalled spindles, hit them hard into the end stops on the machine, twisted some gantries, and more.

It was a lot of fun!

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I made the conversion to Centroid/Teknic over a year ago and it has been a game changer. The tech support for both is excellent! Centroid has it’s own forum which has a wealth of information and many knowledgeable people who are more than willing to help. Teknic also has a number of videos that will walk you thru the tuning process, it’s a little involved, but the software is pretty easy to follow.

One feature that Centroid /Teknics has, is hard stop homing. Which eliminates limit /proximity sensors, no need for all that extra wiring. Works really well. Not sure if that’s something that can be done with this new controller.

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This is awesome news.
The plasma features make it well worth it…restarts were a pain to get it right.

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I made my order yesterday for the servo EX controller! I am curious, which acorn controller is the servo version using? I thought the regular acorn could only do a max of 4 axises? Is it the acornSix?

I want to control some external solenoids for an ATC and maybe make myself an external control console :sunglasses:. How much I/O does the new controller have open for use after things are taken by end stops and limit switches?

When will we get a schematic view to take a look under the hood? I’ve got lots of planning to do in the next few weeks! Also, more videos, they’re great!

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it’s the 4 axis controller, as far as I/O you can go to the Centroid site and you’ll find all the spec’s and also check out the Centroid forum which has tons of info.

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We are using hard stop homing on servos. The sensors are still there and are just used to get you “close” so that homing is fast.

Restarts are a game changer.

We are using Acorn 4, but we have created a special breakout board that lets us to 5 motors and 4 axes all at once. So whether you’re on stepper or servo you get gantry squaring AND a rotary axis all on one machine.

We have used just about every input and output. We are working on schematics. For ATC we do have a dedicated air pressure input you can use, and there are few outputs that can be repurposed.

If you need more since this is an Acorn you can use the Ether 1616, it’ll plug right in:

https://www.centroidcnc.com/centroid_diy/ether1616.html

I have one here that I am testing and it works great :wink:

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Are there any videos or planned videos on this new software? Because I would have to make a new machine startup procedure sign :wink: lol

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I’m working through some videos now, I’d say in a few weeks we’ll have some posted.

The Touch Plate Utility one in the first post is the closest we have out right now for how the software works.

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when I built my pro4848 couple years ago, i did not get any electronics from avid.
I run the usual 3 axes and rotary from centroid on a standard acorn board.
I went this route only to get closer to main stream programing and macro capabilities. I was a manufacturing eng for many years and wrote all my own macros as needed. I looked at many different software systems, and this software was easy t work with, compatible;e with vectric, rotary and all. I do hope that the software they release will be compatabe with my current system so I can update to the same software new builds will have. To date I have not had any problems with the acorn system.
If I ever need to build anther system I would easily get the acorn system

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“All” we did was customize CNC12 to make thing easier for our users. This makes setup for someone that has an Avid CNC machine way easier than starting from scratch with CNC12.

What this means for folks like you is that you can run our version of CNC12 if you wanted. You could use our macros and such. Our wizard does set inputs, outputs and motor settings automatically, but you can override anything if you want.

Alternatively you could take one of our controllers and just run stock Centroid software on it if you wanted.

At the end of the day “our” version of CNC12 and Cenrtroids are the same, we just added a little extra on top.

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Have you guys experimented at all with automatic tool changers and CNC12? I’ve been tempted by them for a while, but afraid of trying to make them work with mach4.