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My BT48 Standard could cut up to 10IPS and Jog up to 16-17IPS (24" circle test) running off a cheesy 1.4Ghz Compaq laptop. It had the 1.5A motors. Yes, the 2A motors do offer more torque in certain areas of the power band, but that's a moot point in keeping with the thread topic.
I want to know com rate percentage and power supply voltage, as these two influence the top end of the tool more than anything else. If you have to go back to 3.6.46 to run SpeedTest.exe, then do it so we can compare apples to apples.
-B
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One of the really daunting things about Microsoft is that it is written to work in hundreds of different kinds of computers, processors and configurations.
Apple on the other hand has total control over the machine that will be running it's program. When you buy a MAC you know that the program and machine will work together without any fuss from you. When Apple releases a new machine they tell you just exactly how far back it will be compatible, and you can believe it.
Dave was asking for a dedicated machine earlier. Well here is the next best thing. thik of how many thousands of hours this community and Shopbot could save if they only had one platform to work with.
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Can't imagine you could buy a Mac for anything like what I paid for the PC I use with my ShopBot that works 100% perfectly though. It cost me £75.
I could be completely wrong but I think we get a very false impression of the issues from looking at the forums.
Human nature is that people only tend to say something when things aren't going right so straight away you seen a disproportionate number of people having problems and how many active ShopBot users are actually on the forums anyway?
It was a different industry but a company that I used to work for that had it's own community forum saw less than 2% of the user base actually participate on the forums.
Having said that I really do think that ShopBot should offer a completely closed system that the end user can't modify or change in any way. Personally I'd base that on something like the Ouya running Android rather than a Mac or PC though.
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I would be willing to bet that if people who had problems with their PC's did a clean install of a fresh copy of Windows without all the crapware, a lot of their problems would go away. A modern computer purchased at a place like Best Buy is loaded with extra stuff that only slows the computer down. Some of it is impossible to get rid of completely. Anti-virus programs are a good example. They run constantly and do things that are very much like a virus. Try getting rid of Norton. It's quite difficult.
It took me several hours of hunting to purge my new purchase Dell computer of crapware. It runs smoothly now and even though it's a bargin basement cheapo, runs the ShopBot 48" circle test at 10 ips easily.
I'm still running 3.6 and won't be upgrading for a while. I like the "Don't fix it if it ain't broke" philosophy.
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Last year my wife bought a new computerized quilt machine which we paid $30,000 for. It came with a computer preloaded with all the software and a UPS for the computer. The communication from the computer to the motor controllers is by a Ethernet cable. the software has more functions than the ShopBot control software as it shows in real time on the computer monitor the design and location of the quilt machine. She has used it as much as I have used my ShopBot, but she has not had one problem with the computer talking to the controller for the motors. The price for the quilt machine with out the computerized function is $20,000. In talking with people I know ShopBot belief is you should be able to plug your ShopBot into your computer and go with it. I know if they were to start supplying computers with each ShopBot they would have to start providing tech support for computers, but I would think at this point they are doing a lot of this right now trying to get people up and running. I have not given up hope on 3.8.4 upgrade yet, but yesterday as I was getting ready and doing my spindle warm up she quit on me twice and I had to reboot the computer to get back up and running. Once I got pass the warm up routine she ran fine for the rest of the day or about 2 hours of cutting time. By the way did not have the dust collect on during warm up. She was just sitting there running the spindle. One thing I did yesterday afternoon that I have been meaning to do on my new computer for her, is to set it up in the Bare-bone configuration as outlined on Black Viper web site for XP. My computer has a clean load of XP with service pack 3, no garbage as I custom built my PC, ASUS ITX mother board, 4 gig ram, Intel dual core processor, and 250 gig solid state hard drive. I will let you know how it goes. By the way my ShopBot is only about a month old and it's a PRS Alpha.
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Ron we are living in a parallel universe here in Australia! Chrissy has an APQS long arm with the Intelliquilt servo system. We went with APQS because of a forum that is identical to ours here with Shopbot. Zero flaming and total love of the product. The APQS designers and tech came out here as they had a dreadfull local install lass and it was really damaging their brand - similar to what is presently happening with Shopbot on this seemingly unfixable comms problem. Anyway these guys spent the day with us, we have become life long friends and the machine hasnt missed a beat in two years unlike the two years we have had with the Bot. I know I would be prepared to spend money with Shopbot were they to bring out a proprietry computer GUARANTEEING no comes drop outs! Shopbot really do need to address this problem pronto as being an open forum all and sundry can read about the problems and pretty soon comms problems will go hand in glove with Shopbot! This is a crying shame as Ted and his team have put a lot of effort into trying to make a value for money product. To me it is utterly daft for tech support to recommend earthing everything. Earth looms should be part of the original machine and should now be supplied FOC to those with problems. I never bad mouth Shopbot but I am very dissappointed in 3.8 as I had hoped this would cure this problem. Like you, ours stops in daft places - like the end of a cut! Eliminating the speed test in my view was crazy!
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New update posted to SB. Hopefully it helps some of you having issues:
http://www.shopbotblog.com/index.php...-update-42713/
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Me personally I'm still sticking with 3.6.44. It has not let me down ever.
Like buying cars (and helicopters:p) never get the first series. I'm waiting a year or so before I look at it...by then the feedback from everyone's problems will have evolved 3.8.x to what it should be.
Cheers
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I'm with you Michael. I'm running a 3.6 something on my tool and didn't even think of upgrading it until lot's of things had been worked out in the earlier releases. I posted the latest release news for those who just can't wait!
