XHC Pendent

[Robertspark]

No, inventor was created from the ground up by Autodesk, it was not a company bought by Autodesk.

I heard a similar story / romour (myth?) about inventor that goes like this

Autodesk created inventor from the ground up, it cost them a lot of money much more than they expected when they started out because of issues and development that was required to get it to take a market share.

When they decided they needed a 3-d modelling software for buildings they decided to buy architectural desk top because it would cost them too much and take too long to develop their own (I heard the statement never again would they do what they did with inventor)...ADT morphed into Revit and the building design package we now have.... Along the way Autodesk have bought out many smaller companies to provide plugin applications / kill off competition to develop Revit but never again would they develop their own from the ground up.

I was surprised to read fusion360 was a ground up development by Autodesk in that post as what I had been told 10-15 years ago may now be incorrect.

I just want uccnc to be the best and most accessible it can be as your attitude has always been "can do" with proactive development

Maybe now I've gone past the midlife bump I can see the end of the road and wonder why people waste time developing things that all do the same thing (different price point / quality / market I understand Hass and hobby mill or lathe no issue or comparison.... 10 different pendants that all talk different languages, do the same thing and are around the same price point.... Why waste time in life .... It's just the a smaller piece of the pie.... 2 different or 3 or 4 I understand.... More than that .... Life's too short ... Maybe the margins and market are higher and larger than I think and it's just another way to earn a living and expend time in life

[Robertspark]

I like that analogy about socialism and soup, makes me think a bit more...

[cncdrive]

Rob,

I think the issue is missunderstanding of USB protocol. Windows and the .net framework offers complete solution to implement USB communication and so the USB communication itself can be done in a plugin in about endless different ways. Even USB HID you can make several ways and there are several different devices implementations depending on how many data you need to send and receive and what your device is.
The other thing is that for some of them you don't need USB drivers and for others you do. And so you may or may not need to create USB drivers too. And so then it requires even more knowledge than to write a plugin.
What I don't understand how and why do you want us to implement something which is already implemented in Windows as a fully configurable solution.

Even if we would give out the communication code it would be no help to anyone with anything.
It is like if I tell you that I send A and then B via a communication channel. What would be the benefit of knowing that? I don't think there would be any.
I think you more think about what functions we call in the UCCNC and when and what data we send to the pendant and not really about how we send data via the USB.
So, what could possibly be an interest for pendant or other devices manufacturers is to see how they can call UCCNC functions and how can they get data from the UCCNC, but that is already documented (you also made a nice document about it). And there is the plugin interface which to some level self document itself with the visible function prototypes. By the way e.g. Mach3 and 4 has only that as "documentation", there is not even a word of documentation available for making plugins, only the function prototypes. (names and parameters)
So I really don't understand what do you mean by implementing a USB protocol plugin and I think that you are right that you don't see this thing in a full view, you don't know how USB programming works is why you think it would be helpful to make something like that.

[cncdrive]

I like that analogy about socialism and soup, makes me think a bit more...

Haha, I've made a few people to think already when I told them my theory about this.
It's mostly about how imperfect things are which people make and usually human is not clever enough to figure out better ways.
Like how capitalism is implemented now ... it is only a temporary solution with more and more fixed needed as the time goes, because without the fixes it will finally convert itself into socialism and you know I live in Hungary where we were forced to live in Socialism for a long time and that is something we never want back...

[Robertspark]

. I think that you are right that you don't see this thing in a full view, you don't know how USB programming works is why you think it would be helpful to make something like that.

I think you've got the mail on the head there!

I don't upon reflection of your last post.

You are right The documentation on mach3/4 is abysmal... It never gets updated... It has never changed...
There is a bit on plugins but really hard to understand for non programmers (which I am guessing most hobby / small industrial CNC users are to uccnc mach3/4 level are) with zero worked examples to cut and paste from and let's face it near zero manufacturer support or comment from the manufacturer on their own forum to queries

Why I still like uccnc and it's potential to be better and I keep asking for daft things.... Sometimes I just need to be told why they are daft...

[ger21]

just not sure if S-curve acceleration is really that important if you've not got rotary axis and CSS / feed per revolution?

Some of us have been waiting 10 years for an S-Curve planner. Ever since Art wrote the Tempest planner for Mach3 and showed how nice it can be. Especially for big, fast routers. I think it would benefit far more people than rotary support.

But having said that, they definitely need to at least add G93, which is really all most people will need for rotary work.

[Gene8522]

I started this post, you guy's have gone way over my head.
Still it is an interesting read. THANKS ALL

Just one question...........what is...... I like that analogy about socialism and soup, makes me think a bit more...
Gene

[Robertspark]

Sorry Gene8522, long and the short.... Your xhc controller is not supported and never will be unless you or another user decide to write a plugin for it.... Suggest sell it, recoup some of the cost and buy a compatible one maybe with some upgraded features.

I thought about trying to contact xhc and ask about a plugin for uccnc .... Maybe if they get enough enquiries from random individuals (emails) over time they may think it's viable to think outside the small box of mach3 which is no longer developed and supported

[Robertspark]

just not sure if S-curve acceleration is really that important if you've not got rotary axis and CSS / feed per revolution?

Some of us have been waiting 10 years for an S-Curve planner. Ever since Art wrote the Tempest planner for Mach3 and showed how nice it can be. Especially for big, fast routers. I think it would benefit far more people than rotary support.

But having said that, they definitely need to at least add G93, which is really all most people will need for rotary work.

G93?? Are you sure you don't mean g95??

I understand my perspective is limited to a limited exposure and experience and have never seen the tempest planner or any s-curve CNC before.

Just a point of view of 1, but my concern is development time sunk into it, potential bugs (I know they will be ironed out, but it adds time and stops development on what other bits I (one person's perspective ) feel is missing or would like.

I also wonder how cncdrive will recoup ongoing development costs of uccnc.... Say there are 10,000 uccnc licences they have sold (I have no clue just a guess), if they develop a new planner and integrate it as an update... That's 10,000 sales / upgrade fees they don't get .... While I don't want to pay again for something I bought once I do want cncdrive to be viable as it will keep them developing uccnc as well as picking up new sales.
The flip side is.... Does that mean a whole load of users ditch uccnc because they don't want to upgrade and feel let down by having to buy the software licence (or maybe a reduced upgrade fee) a second time.

We are just passengers on the uccnc bus and we've all bought a ticket once, which was simply as uccnc was at the time of purchase. We have no control over the bus, but from time to time I like to ask the driver if they can go another way... It's a big bus now, but it's still nice to ask even if the answer is "no" or "not now", it's also worth checking from the active community if they are looking for similar things, and maybe the bus driver with think again

Occasional requests for another ticket keeps fuel in the bus.... Or maybe an extension to the ticket . A new ticket X 10,000 users (a random guess over licences) is a windfall and cash cow.... But may annoy passengers.... A ticket extension (25%, 50% upgrade cost) keeps fuel in the bus and the bus driver happy to keep driving the bus whilst still picking up new passengers

Just my simplistic view

[Gene8522]

I Know that this is off subject. You said something about Autodesk buying up the competition.
I was using ArtCAM Insignia 2011. It was very straight forward and fairly easy to navigate around and find the tools I was looking for.
But then out of the blue, Autodesk had taken over ArtCam and would no longer support Insignia. Autodesk agreed to give me a license
to AutoDesk's "more better and improved" - "Autodesk ArtCAM Standard 2018". Gee they did me no favors. All of the old files I had been using with Insignia will not open in Autodesk ArtCAM 2018
because I get a pop-up that tells me I need a dongle to run them. Even thought I have the ArtCAM dongle the files won't open. Autodesk told me that I could convert the files to Autodesk ArtCAM, but less then half of the files converted over. Here's my next beef, the "much improved" main screen is a night mare to navigate. The tool are all over the screen and most of them are in some drop downs across the top of the screen . If you need a tool that you haven't used in a while, good luck finding it. Not GOOD!
Because of this, most of the time now I'm using Aspire 8.5.