8877
« on: April 20, 2012, 03:03:20 AM »
Assuming these drives can accept Step/Dir then you have many options including even using the parallel port. Using that however would almost certainly mean you would have to use the electronic gearing in the drives which is not the best approach in my opinion.
Ok on to devices, I use the SmoothStepper on most of my machines and they work well and the Ethernet version has solved many of the noise issues that some people suffered from. One problem however is Step/Dir spindle control with the SS is not perfect, it works well enough but very occasionally the pulse stream seems to be interrupted for a fraction of a second and this is more prevalent if you have a spindle speed override. Greg knows there is a problem and has done for many years but it must be low priority as it has not been dealt with yet. Having said that it still works well and is very usable as long as you dont plan on using spindle override.
The other devices available are the Kflop, Galil, DSPMC which all work well by all accounts but I have never used any of them so cant comment on them from a users perspective.
There is also a relatively new device, or rather series of devices, on the market. They are the CS Labs devices from Poland. I am seriously considering getting the 4 axis ethernet one to use on the small lathe I am retrofitting as they look to be almost perfect for my needs. Things like 24v I/O and differential Step/Dir signals are very important to me and previously I have had to make up my own interfaces to convert from 5v to 24v and vice versa. I just have a few questions to be answered by them such as does it support step/dir spindle yet and also does it do lathe threading. If the answer to these is yes then I think I will be placing an order soon. The lack of step/dir spindle control would be an issue for me as all my spindles are servos and although I can use these drives with analogue inputs the analogue spindle control is, as far as I believe, just 0-10v rather than +-10v. Obviously I could still use the 0to 10v but I would have to make up a relay board to swap the polarity for spindle reversal and its something I would rather I didnt have to do.
Hood