Edit Galil Plugin

[Holzwurm56]

Hi ,
I am hobby mechanic and get some galil cards 1040 , 1341 , 1540 . Unfortunately I reed that they are all not supported .
It is posible the code for the galil card that the plugin has created , manually load in Smartterm and run nthe machine ?
I read thats possible to edit the plugin to use the 1040 , with what for editor or software I can open the plugin ?

Many thanks for every answer

Hans

[kcrouch]

Hans,
The trouble is with the early series Galil cards. They don't support the data record that the later controllers use to communicate with the plugin. There are lots of inexpensive Galil boards available on EBay and elsewhere that are supported by the plugin. You would be much better off getting one of them.

Kenny

[smurph]

The Mach and Galil combination doesn't create static code for the Galil controller that can be downloaded to the controller and run "offline".  It talks to the Galil controller constantly and streams commands to it in a very dynamic fashion.  In other words, it is not a G code to Galil code converter.

I actually wrote some code to run the 1341 (VME) on an OpenBSD install on a Fanuc VME single board computer.  I then wrote a TCP/IP server that mimics a Galil stand alone Ethernet controller.  The problem is that you have to have a VME chassis, a Fanuc SBC, (not cheap at all) and a lot of UNIX know how.  My point is that anything is possible, but it might not be worth it.

The 1040 and 1540, as Kenny said, suffer from a lack of a data record.  And the 1540 also has the problem of being a serial only device.  Of the two, the 1040 has possibilities but the whole plugin would have to be rewritten to even try it.  The plugin is written in Visual Studio 2003 C++ (That is what you would edit the plugin code with).

Finding a newer ISA (DMC17x0), PCI (DMC18x0/2/6), or Any of the Ethernet controllers would be the quickest route to success.

Steve

[Holzwurm56]

Hi Steve ,
I have some DMC-1341 too , a VME-Chasis and some Themis/Sun UltraSparc Singleboardcomputer ,
but I have no brain to write a program . The Themis has a small OS called OpenBootProm
and runs under OpenBSD too . When it`s possible to use the 1341 it would be a great thing .

Regards
Hans

[smurph]

The problem with the 1341 and my OpenBSD hack is that I wrote the VME bus driver (I was "Mr. VME" at OpenBSD for many years) specifically for the Fanuc SBC.  It will run on no other hardware.  And the VME driver is not in the OpenBSD source tree.  So the 1341 will never really be possible to use with Mach. 

Steve