Forum Use

[fredtoo]

My Shopbot is alive and well! Paid for itself many times over and still making' money every day.....

[Brady Watson]

I have not gone to Acorn. I have bought some components to widen my machine. They are about to be installed. I may well upgrade the operating system- and if I do, I would upgrade motors too... But I have owned 5 shopbots so far- and they are excellent for what they do, and for whom they let try out the CNC router world. I have my eye on a piece of heavy iron now- but I don't have enough power for it. If I did, I would probably make the switch. But how hard would WinCNC be to learn? Or Acorn? I am not sentimental, but I have some high respect for the road that these folks paved for people like me.

Monty

Not as difficult as you may have been led to believe, Monty. The entire rest of the world runs GCode...SB in their quest of daring to be different has ruined more brains than you can count with the SB "language". It's fine if you don't know any better, but go ahead and try telling an employer you've been running a CNC router for 20 years but you don't know GCode. You'd be laughed out of the room and shown the door. You could have just as easily learned GCode commands from day 1....It's just as easy as SBP and in many ways easier. To be clear, most never even send commands to the machine via the MDI - everything is handled by CAM and you just run the file after homing etc using the macro buttons for the CNC. So there's really nothing to learn until you want to do more advanced things. So there's not really much concern regarding SBP vs GCode as it relates to your day to day. You're going to have to buy the full version of VCP or equivalent that outputs code other than SBP, but that's about it. You deserve software made in this decade...so that shouldn't be too hard to convince anyone to upgrade.

Centroid is going to be a cheaper option than WinCNC. Nothing against WinCNC, it's excellent and very reliable, but they're way overdo for an overhaul of their 'engine'. It's simply not fast enough anymore. Acorn is at least 4 times faster than WinCNC - meaning the communication stream between the PC and controller. This means you can run those Alpha 7.2:1 motors without any trickery straight up and have them perform as designed. I've converted an Alpha over to Acorn and it rips...but I would advise anyone upgrading to a new control to just get new motors and gearboxes because they're so cheap now. The newer rare earth magnet closed loop steppers are plenty powerful and so much so that you can drop down to a NEMA23 instead of the SB NEMA34 sized motors and have all the power you'd ever need and save a few bucks on motors and gearboxes compared to N34s.

Having monkeyed with these machines for a long time, I have a unique perspective. It was a big investment whenever you got into this...and even though those days are long gone, the chassis of these machines are okay. They're ripe for retrofitting compared to a lot of other junk they're selling these days. I like to call a rose a rose...these machines are nothing more than appliances. By definition, they MUST be as reliable as your dishwasher, table saw or any other appliance you use in your life, or....they're just not worth the agg. You can certainly make these machines reliable. My PRT will run for days on end using SB3 with no COM issues or problems...but I've beefed up the COM side of things and have a PC designed specifically for running the tool and nothing else. You want and need your machine to be 'tractor duty' reliable. For some, that means doing a retrofit. It's not as bad or as complicated as it may seem....I have several WinCNC and Centroid machines. I'm not in the retrofit business, but there are guys out there like Gary Campbell and Scott Worden that know these machines and what you need to upgrade. They'll get you going if you need a retrofit. A word of advice...things have gotten WAY more expensive due to inflation these past few years. Upgrading is gonna hurt a little...but it's worth it. As far as I know, nobody sells or has a parts list for DIYers that want to save a few bucks...You either upgrade yourself by reading the documentation like the rest of us, or you buy the whole upgrade. Unfortunately...there's no middle option where "you help"...that's supposed to cost extra anyway...you know this.

-B

[coryatjohn]

A word of advice...things have gotten WAY more expensive due to inflation these past few years. Upgrading is gonna hurt a little...but it's worth it.

My upgrade netted out to about $4k because I was able to sell all my SB3 Alpha components for $3k. So the upgrade was reasonably priced. Even using one of the assemblers, it's still a very DIY project that you have to support yourself. Don't expect a lot of hand holding or kind words.

[waynelocke]

I have a 2001 PRT which I bought new after having a used PR. My Sb got me into CNC and changed my business and manner of working completely. At the time it was a cnc machine I could afford. I love my machine and Shopbot. The company is great but I am past the age of looking at a new machine and Sb did not have a real upgrade path for me so last year I bought a Centroid upgrade from Scott Worden and it gave me a new machine. I did not upgrade the motors but the machine is faster and smoother and has some very nice features, which after getting used to them, are great. Zeroing the all three axis on startup and being able to control my Chinese spindle and Hitachi vid from the software is great as is having multiple work coordinates - one click and it zeroes for the rotary. The touch off button is another great feature. It was a bit more than plug and play but not much. Using SB code for over 20 years made learning and using G code a bit more than some allege but it was not bad.