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« on: January 27, 2014, 10:10:16 AM »
The CSMIO is an excellent controller and definitely it conforms to Industrial practices such as 24vI/O etc but that is not to say it should not be used on a machine that is deemed not to be industrial.
As you say however the cost is more and if that is a problem then I do know the Smoothstepper threads very well, but it does just use a single pulse so your spindle motor would have to be fairly good at maintaining rpm.
Sadly the CSMIO/IP-M doesnt support threading at this time as if it did it would be a very economical controller for the smaller lathes as there is no need for breakout boards, spindle controllers etc that the other offerings really require.
The other option is to try the parallel port, lots of people have used it very successfully in the past for threading, me included. I have moved on from the PP now as my machines are mostly servo driven and the PP just could not give me the resolution and velocity that I required but for a stepper driven machine it is fine.
Hood