Just a double check here as I'm wondering if you guys are talking at cross purposes. If by 'programable control' you mean can Mach drive the AXES of a machine in a cordinated manner via RS232 as it does via the parallel port then the answer is pretty much as Terry has indicated. Of course this is basically what a USB smoothstepper and it's ilk do except it's via USB of course rather than RS232. However - if by 'programable control' you mean sending control signals to 'an external' machine to do other 'stuff' like control valves or turn things on/off, send/receive data etc. Then of course the answer is yes - Mach can do that. If this IS what you're wanting then your choices are direct serial control or Modbus RTU.
Finally, after so much time spent in thinking, I’ve bought a Chinese CNC. Gulliver mod 1710. I’ve choosed the model “3020T USB” from CNCEST manufacturer because it have a USB port; other cnc’s need a pc with parallel port and I have no pc with it! I’ve just a MacBook PRO with Windoze7 running on Parallelsit must work!
I’ve bought it from ebay seller “top5zoom” that shipped it from Germany via DHL for free. The machine arrived into two big boxes. The packaging was made very well with 5cm soft plastic foam that protect and stabilize the machine into the box. The total weight of the two parcels was 35kg!!!
The machine is very noisy during operation. I’ve enclosed it in thick foam boards to reduce it. The first thing to do after unboxing was assemble it. Just screw in 4 power supply connectors.
Simple and easy. The second was check the ball screws,all 3 axes are moved on ball screw, and greas it with heavy aeronautical grease “Anderol” from US Army surplus. Probably standard grease will do the job but I’ve preferred my military grease. At first I’ve found that the VFD controllor had a corrupted configuration.
Apr 05, 2011 Mach3 demo Com interface UI part 1. Demo of utilizing the COM interface exposed by Mach3 to develop an alternative UI. 3D Map Generator - ATLAS - Photoshop Plugin.
Following the first part of this post that I’ve found on a, thanks to user “gmungas”, I could have it running well. This is the VFD controller.
The post: 'I finally figured out the VFD and software settings for my 1.5 kW, 110Vac, 400Hz Spindle with the PRT-E1500W VFD in order to run the spindle either in manual mode or with through the PC. Here's the procedure I used.
(Note I didn't change the 220V setting to 110V in the VFD since there isn't a mechanism for generating higher voltage than the VFD supply and it doesn't appear to be necessary, but this should be vetted by another party (CHIMERA1960?) prior to long duration running).