GRBL vs Mach3?

[Dave Cav]

I am in the early stages of selecting a CNC setup. I'm nowhere near deciding whether or not I want to go with a Chinese setup, one of the various CNC builds available from Canada, or one of the relatively high dollar setups made in the US. One thing I need clarity on is the controller software.

My neighbor has built and operated several CNC setups from scratch, and is pretty advanced in terms of his programming skills; one of his side jobs is designing Android based chemical injection systems for commercial irrigation. He is pretty opinionated and he insists that I stay far away from anything using GRBL and that I should only consider Mach3 based systems. As far as CAD systems are concerned, he used several different systems, using Libre for quite a while, but now uses VCarve.

I've been messing around with computers since 1983, mostly PC based but some Android. My initial exposure to CAD was AutoCad 10 back in the late 80s or early 90s. I was a high school shop teacher before I retired and have a passing familiarity with CAD, 3D printing, CNC routing, plasma cutting and CNC laser work, although to be honest most of my teaching experience was conventional shop; I generally let the CAD teachers handle all the digital stuff. However, I did get a nasty old plasma cutting system up and working at my last school, and I have done a little messing around with Rhino.

The only obvious problem I can see with Mach3 is that it's parallel port based, but that's no big deal as refurbrished PCs with parallel ports are readily available as are ad-in cards for PCs. My neighbor says Mach3 is much more capable and less fussy than GRBL, although from what I have been able to discover on line, Mach3 often seems to take quite a bit of fooling around to get it to work right. Nearly all of the turnkey CNC systems use GRBL based control software, although some of the much smaller Chinese systems have Mach3 controllers available, but those are generally in the 3018 size range which is a lot smaller than what I want to do.

Any information would be appreciated.

[Jim Becker]

Me...I wouldn't consider Mach3 for a new machine at all....Mach4 is newer, more flexible for communication and more capable. My Camaster machine uses WinCNC and if I found a need to change to something like an AVID machine due to environment, I'd probably opt to use Centroid ACORN, although I suppose I could be fine with Mach4, too.

I've only seen GRBL on very basic import devices...I think that the inexpensive laser I bought but have not yet lit up uses it.

[Bill George]

I have used both GRBL and Mach3. GRBL is a joke, its meant for hobby grade machines and all I had was a world of problems. Mach3 is better but I switched to Mach4 and its much improved. Modern M3 or M4 controllers use Ethernet or USB not parallel port, I used Warp 9 ESS on one. You might look at Acorn for control as your starting from scratch. PS I think its Windows 10 only. https://www.amazon.com/Centroid-Acor.../dp/B07GBHM55H

What Jim is using is WinCNC its pretty expensive, but good.

[Ronald Blue]

How big of a machine are you seeking Dave? There are some used options out there in CAMaster. You can join CAMheads as a guest and look around.

[Dennis Peacock]

I have used both GRBL and Mach3. GRBL is a joke, its meant for hobby grade machines and all I had was a world of problems.

Bill,
I think this may be related to why I don't "trust" my machine. My Shapeoko 3 XXL is GRBL and I've been wondering what my option is to get away from GRBL.

[Dave Cav]

Thanks again for the input. I'm leaning towards a 1000mm x 1000mm Workbee from Bulkman 3d. They have a number of packages with several different control systems available, and my neighbor has a nearly identical setup.

[Bill George]

There are folks using GRBL everyday but I had a lot of issues. If the machine has standard stepper motors and stepper motor drivers it can use either Mach3/4 or Acorn controllers. I stuck with Mach4 because I was already set up for it, otherwise I would use the Acorn controller system.

I had a Warp 9 ESS on my larger commercial machine with Mach3/4 and for the one I built the PMDX USB controller, but having to do over I would do away with the USB system. I think Acorn is Ethernet but it does require Windows 10 and I would go with the Pro version.