I think a few have but not many. I’m not sure if you’re on the Facebook group but there have been a handful of posts about receiving foreman QCWs.
It has definitely been a slow and gradual release.
If that the case, that’s fine; but, I’d like to know what 1F’s plan is so I can manage my expectations.
Onefinity sent an email out today. Starting on Monday you will be able to see shipping times on their website. I’m assuming that means something similar to Order# XXXXX-YYYYY will be shipping out April 17-21.
@Swick In the past, shipping times were generic to product (e.g., 2-4 weeks for journeyman, 4-6 weeks for Woodworker X50, etc…). I would imagine it will continue to be that vs. your specific order number
@OnefinityCNC is there any news on the upgrade path ???
Man I hate asking about the trade in/upgrade program. So I won’t ask. Just gonna put this out there 
@bob01dog Yep, it’s hardly worth thinking about at this juncture. The idea of controlling the cutting feed rate on the fly (just this one feature) would make me consider the upgrade. A tool setter would be heaven on earth. So, in the meantime, I’ll just work with what I have and hope the 1.03 firmware (and eventually the v2.0) is stable. Just downloaded it and about to pull the trigger…
I am in desperate need of the Elite and wanting to order but after purchasing my Woodworker 6 weeks before the announcement of the Elite series I am extremely gun shy. I am afraid I am going to order an Elite and then a few weeks later the upgrade program will be announced and my ability to sell my used Woodworker will be greatly diminished. I understand that here may be a prolonged wait for materials to upgrade but with 3 - 4 month lead times currently for the Elite a wait for the upgrade will be understandable. Although, the upgrade kits may be able to ship quicker due to the fact there may not be a need for assembly and testing before shipping. Please make an announcement for this Father’s Day with a “Upgrade DAD with an Elite “Boss” Upgrade for his current Onefinity CNC this Father’s Day!!!” …ASAP…pretty, pretty pretty please with some Jenny bits on top.
Has anyone considered just buying the components directly from Masso?
https://www.masso.com.au/
It’s not like you need Onefinity to upgrade.
Any news? Patiently, but eagerly waiting.
I’ve had a Journeyman for one year. It’s my first CNC, and I’m far from done learning.
During that year I watched Onefinity deploy upgrades that required corrections to their corrections. I made mistakes that Onefinity’s Tech Support solved instantly. I made projects that thrilled me and also made some failures. I bought add-ons that didn’t work out and I damaged my spindle with brass dust. My point is that all of us have more to learn. So why am I posting on a thread concerned with the Masso upgrade?
Because it’s reasonable to think that the user’s knowledge or the company’s preparation are not perfect. Being in a hurry to get the most recently developed product makes little sense, especially if (like me) you’re not a CNC veteran. If you are a CNC veteran, why are you buying a machine whose cost/abilities/business model is the “serious home hobbyist”? I’m fine with learning enough about CNC to know whether (and why) the Masso is a “must”, while everybody else finds the kinks that still have to be worked out.
I think I am in the same boat, new journeyman out of the box and just learning. Upgrades are tempting…but why when there is just so much to learn and do with the machine I already have? Shiny and new tech is great and all, however something to be said for proven and no glitches either!
A simple update on timeframe of the upgrade would be nice it’s been a long time. I appreciate everything OF has done with their upgrade program but I am ready to upgrade to the Masso. Please reply and put some of our concerns to rest. Thank you
The original post says
“at the earliest, by the end of 2023.”
Bear in mind it was also said the tool setter would be available before the first machine shipped which was about 4 months ago.
Hey Tom,
the Masso G3 Touch is a universal stand-alone CNC controller and can work with a lot of different stepper motor types. But you are right. One argument for the Onefinity Elite Upgrade is that it’s ready to use with the Onefinity CNC machine, the other is the excellent price! (I know the price of the upgrade is not yet known, but I at least if you take the price of a Elite machine and compare it with the same model of original Series with no controller.)
I guess programming is hard when they give you the Save file but there’s more involved than what you think, but i invite you do it on your own… it’ll probably be faster
I would recommend proximity switches over ir because if you feel the need to trigger them, it’s easier to slap a screw driver
Hey Tom,
what exactly are the reasons for you to want the Masso Controller? Or, is there something why you think the Onefinity Original Series/Buildbotics Controller is not matching your requirements?
I plan to use another controller too, but that is only for certain reasons. Nonetheless I bought a Onefinity Controller because I think the Buildbotics and its derivate, the Onefinity, is really a very complete and capable controller, it’s a piece of soft- and hardware to be fascinated of if you think of the fact that it was programmed mainly by one person. And for a stand-alone CNC controller, the price is unbeatable.
The open-loop steppers as found on the Onefinity Original Series are used widely everywhere, both in the hobbyist area and in the professional and industrial area too, they are the standard motor for CNC machines. The open-loop stepper motor is an ingenious piece of technology that has the steps there in hardware, and controlling it is something that has been established and improved over many decades. Well-evolved integrated stepper driver chips like the Texas Instruments DRV8711 are available at very low cost. The secret of having open-loop steppers work reliably is simply to dimensionate them correctly for the application.
Closed-loop steppers as found on the Elite/Masso have an encoder (usually a glass disk with marks on it that are read by a photo sensor) that reports back every movement to the driver, so if the motor does not execute the steps which the driver received from the CNC controller, the driver can try to repeat them and catch up the position, and should this fail, will report an alarm to the CNC controller which can then stop the program.
If you should say e.g. as a luthier you have sometimes workpieces worth $3000 then I know exactly what you are talking of. But when judging on the correct motors to choose for your CNC machine, it is important to consider two things:
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Do the open-loop steppers really are a cause of possible malfunction to have a danger of damage on a workpiece? Or did I encounter damage because the machine did something wrong but that had in fact other causes? Aren’t open-loop steppers, a well-used standard motor for CNC, reliable enough to not be the cause of problems?
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A closed-loop stepper does not report missed steps to the CNC controller either. It just sends an alarm if the amount of divergence between received step commands and steps executed becomes too high and it cannot catch up and compensate this anymore, so the controller can stop the program. But what could be the cause of a stepper not executing the steps? In daily use, this could be e.g.
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a too high feed, plunge or depth of cut rate so that the motor is not capable to cope with it
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a failure of the milling motor or of the electric parts that ensure its functioning so that the bit does not rotate anymore
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Other errors you could encounter, that would not make loosing steps, but disturb the operation are:
- a bit that breaks
The question is now: Would a closed-loop stepper have avoided a damage to the workpiece, more than when using an open-loop stepper system? I think it’s about a closed-loop stepper bringing a different machine behaviour: It would not proceed milling the program after having lost too much steps. But would the event that triggered the error, e.g. a too high feed rate, with a bit stuck in the workpiece, or a workpiece shifted out of its position by the too high feed force when bit is partially broken or stalled, have prevented that the machine made a damage to the workpiece? I think, you can’t be sure. If you mill the f-hole of a violin top that was dried for twenty years, I think perhaps you cannot tolerate even a single millimeter damage, that could occur even when using a closed-loop stepper. So in short, the moment when a closed-loop stepper signals the alarm to the CNC controller, often it is when a damage is already done. The controller then just won’t proceed stupidly with the entire rest of the program.
If I personally plan to use something superior to open-loop steppers, that would not be the closed-loop steppers as found on the Masso/Elite, but servo motors, because they have not the typical stepper speed limit and can run twenty times faster. They are closed-loop too, but as they have no hardware steps, they need extremely sophisticated algorithms in their driver and those drivers are more expensive.
But even servos would not change anything on the danger of the user selecting too high cut rates, or routers failing, or bits breaking.
What I think you need in the first place is to retrofit a professional cable management (drag chains) to your machine, to get rid of the known possible causes of errors on this machine, and, if you want, additionally proximity sensors as limit switches which can be added to the Onefinity/Buildbotics controller, to get rid of stall homing.
Besides that, to use the Onefinity/Buildbotics Controller with open-loop steppers, it would be enough to
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have enough experience with CNC milling wood to always select an appropriate feed, plunge and depth of cut rate matching the wood type,
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to use high-quality bits and to make sure they’re always sharp, and
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to have a reliable electric system around a reliable millling motor.
So far my thoughts on that, hope it gave you some inspiration.
Further Information
Hey Tom,
I understand what you want to have. I also know about this limitation of VCarve.
By the way, what you want is in fact what vertical machining centers (VMCs) do with their rotated workpiece axis A.
I think at the moment, you simply turn the workpiece by 90° more or less manually after each working step, and it works but you would like that the machine does it by itself in one run.
I plan to implement the same as what you want, but I’m not yet there, so unfortunately I cannot show you or share something that works. I plan to use a PC-motherboard with I/O port card-based CNC controller and use LinuxCNC as the CNC control software, but LinuxCNC is not a controller hardware, just a CNC controller software.
I understand that the Masso G3 with its five drivers would handle what you want easily with still each Y motor on its own driver. You could buy just the Masso G3 yourself and use it with the Onefinity Original Series stock steppers (23HS30-2804S & 23HS22-2804S), in that case you would have to buy the suitable stepper drivers as separate units. That is possible, the Masso can work with many different stepper motors. You would also need a power supply and a relay module. Tom @TMToronto has shown in this forum how to setup and use the Masso G3 in a custom configuration and has more experience with this controller.
I don’t know if I will have the time to take a closer look at the Onefinity’s/Buildbotics’ capability to run the two Y steppers on one driver reliably to have the fourth driver free for an A axis, but I think it would be well worth it. The problem is I really have so much different things to do at the moment and I have not much progress with my CNC at the moment at all.
I know the Masso is relatively new here but compare the number of post’s with unusual problems for the BB control verses the Masso, in MHO it is a game changer for ease of us and rock solid control
@OnefinityCNC I am wondering is there an option or possibility to upgrade from Elite Journeyman to Elite Foreman I would imagine it would be pretty easy to swap the rails for longer ones but wanted to ask.
Thanks!