I purchased a CSMIO/IP-S, a CSMIO/MPG, CSMIO/Enc and a CSMIO/IO from CS-Lab a week or so ago and first impressions are very good.

I first saw the CSMIO range of products a year or so ago and liked the look of the specifications of them as they seemed to be aimed more at the industrial end of the market.
The things that I liked were that the I/O were 24v which is much more noise immune and is the Industry standard. There are also Analogue Inputs and Outputs for such things as spindle control, Feed and Spindle override pots etc. The Step/Dir signals are also differential which again is very noise immune and it is something I have used on my machines but have had to make up my own line drivers up until now. It also communicates via Ethernet which again is very robust.

To save me typing out the specs here is a link
http://www.cs-lab.eu/en/index.php?m=gallery&s=show&fid=48&sort=&uinfo=CSMIOIPS_6_axis_CNC_Ethernet_Motion_Controller_STEPDIR

I am using this on a small lathe I am retrofitting at the moment, its probably a bit overkill for the wee lathe but I wanted to test it out and see if it lived up to the impressive specifications before I put it on the big lathe. As said first impressions are good, I am just at the wiring up stage but have been testing things out as I go.
The modules are all designed to fit on din rails which  makes things very neat and easy to mount. The IP/S, IO and Enc come with breakout boards and ribbon cables which again are din rail mounted.

I will post later on with what I have tested so far and my thoughts.
Hood

Below is a pic of the modules and breakouts and an additional board I have made up. This board iis needed for me as the CSMIO/IP-S only has spindle control via one of the Analogue outs and it is 0-10v. That is perfect for VFD's as thats what they take but servo  drives usually want a -10 to +10v signal so I needed to invert the signal for opposite rotation. To do this was easy enough, I just used two relays. The other connectors on the board are just distribution points for the 24v. At some point there should be a possibilty to use an unused axis output as a spindle so that would be a better option for me as my drives can accept Step/Dir.
 Anyway I have tested out the spindle and it is very linear and the speed closely matches the commanded RPM, its out by about 15rpm but this will be easy to adjust to get closer by altering the volts/rpm setting in my drive.
 I have the spindle motor drives buffered encoder outputs feeding the Enc module and this allows Mach to see the RPM. In addition the Enc module is used for lathe threading and unlike the normal setups for Mach the encoder is used rather than just the index, this means that if the spindle slows drastically the axis will, if it speeds the axis will and should lead to very accurate threading even on a machine with an underpowered spindle motor. I have tested this out in simulation by altering the spindle override whilst the threading code is running and the Z axis definitely looks like it is tracking the spindle closely but I suppose I will only know for sure when I ge the machine finished and actually cut some threads.
 The encoder usage should also mean that in the future it will be capable of  rigid tapping.

 I also have the MPG module wired up, I have the MPG connected to the differential inputs (can be used single ended if your MPG is not differential) I also have two rotary switches connected to the MPG module, one is to change the axis that the MPG controls and the other changes the multiplication of the axis. It can be set to x1 x10 x100 for people who use Imperial units or x10 x100 x1000 for people like me who use metric. This is the way most industrial  CNC's work and although I am not actually controlling an axis from the MPG at this point it seems smooth when watching the DROs in Mach so hopes are high.
 The MPG module also has 2 analogue inputs that can be used for Feed and spindle overrides but I have these connected to the main controller so I didnt use them on the MPG module.
I also have  7 buttons on my front panel which connect va the 24v Inputs on the main controller, I have a few set up so far, Start, Hold, Stop and setting them up is easy, its just the same as you would normally do in Ports and Pins, you just set the port as 10 and the pin to whatever input number it is connected to.

The plugin is very user friendly and has quite a lot of options, one nice thing is that you set the analogue I/O here and it writes direct so you dont have to set anything up in Mach and you dont need a Brain or Macropump for FRO etc. You also tell the Plugin what the spindle encoder count is and it automatically sends the rpm to the Spindle speed DRO so again no setup required in Mach itself.

I will hopefully get a bit more done in the coming week and will post any updates but its looking good so far.

Hood

Nice work Hood.

Mike

Thanks Mike but the CSMIO mounting method helps a lot keeping things nice and neat
Hood

Hood,

Nice looking installation -

I have one of their CSMIO/IP-M and MPG modules that I ordered to update my EMCO Compact 5PC lathe. I had started on the update but then started having problems with My Defiance Mill's controller (Bridgeport DX-32) so the EMCO project got pushed to the back burner for a while.

I have done some bench testing of the IP-M and ENC modules and I really like CS-Labs MACH3 plugin. Its well thought out and it was really easy to set up.
Like you, I also liked the DIN rail mounting and it makes for an easy, neat installation.

I had originally wanted to use the EMCO's spindle slotted disk and optical sensors for RPM and Index feedback but found the CSMIO/IP-M's firmware didn't allow for this.
I recently wrote CS-Labs regarding this and they have said the firmware in the IP-M was due for update in the near future to add this function. This was very good to hear and will
make the CSMIO/IP-M + ENC a perfect combination for a large number of lathe and mill conversions. Not the cheapest option but a far more flexible one.

CS-Lab also said they were adding VFD PID control to the CSMIO/IP-M  -  
12 Digital In
4 Digital Out
2 Analog In
2 Analog out
NICE!!

Orin


    

Hood,

I have tried to post a reply to your original thread but the forum keeps kicking my post back? Trying again by making a new post...........


Nice looking installation -

I have one of their CSMIO/IP-M and MPG modules that I ordered to update my EMCO Compact 5PC lathe. I had started on the update but then started having problems with My Defiance Mill's controller (Bridgeport DX-32) so the EMCO project got pushed to the back burner for a while.

I have done some bench testing of the IP-M and ENC modules and I really like CS-Labs MACH3 plugin. Its well thought out and it was really easy to set up.
Like you, I also liked the DIN rail mounting and it makes for an easy, neat installation.

I had originally wanted to use the EMCO's spindle slotted disk and optical sensors for RPM and Index feedback but found the CSMIO/IP-M's firmware didn't allow for this.
I recently wrote CS-Labs regarding this and they have said the firmware in the IP-M was due for update in the near future to add this function. This was very good to hear and will
make the CSMIO/IP-M + ENC a perfect combination for a large number of lathe and mill conversions. Not the cheapest option but a far more flexible one.

CS-Lab also said they were adding VFD PID control to the CSMIO/IP-M  -  
12 Digital In
4 Digital Out
2 Analog In
2 Analog out
NICE!!

Attached are a couple of photos of my project - Please keep us up-to-date on yours.

Orin

[modified to add attachment - scottn]

That is really good news, I had asked a while back if the Enc module could be use with the CSMIO/IP-M  for threading and they said it could not, looks like they have had second thoughts on it.
It already makes a very nice wee controller for mills and soon hopefully  small lathes that dont require the high frequency step/dir of the bigger brother controllers.

Hood

Hi Hood...

Here is the question I asked them:

"The EMCO Compact 5PC that I'm converting has 2 simple opto sensors on the spindle - One for speed that reads a 100 pulse-per-revolution slotted disk and one for indexing that reads 1 pulse-per-revolution for indexing. Could I not simply use 2 of the CSMIO/IP-M digital inputs to read these opto sensor outputs and configure them for RPM and Index sensors through MACH3? Having to use the CSMIO/IP-S + ENC module for this appears to be overkill for this simple project."

and here is their answer:

"I think about something for threading in low-budget projects. Currently we have a lot of work with firmware and new functionalities for CSMIO/IP-A and IP-S, but function you're talking about + PID controller for spindle speed(torque control mode) should be available also with near firmware upgrades."

I hope I understood their response correctly -

Orin

Ah Ok there seemed to be a bit of a screw up but Scvott has it sorted now

I see now what you are saying, they are going to do the threading in the M using the normal means in Mach ie 1  Index pulse. That should be great for a budget machine.
As for not being cheap its actually not too bad if you consider you dont need breakout boards or spindle controllers as well as the motion controller.
Its just a bit of a shame that you cant expand the I/O like you can with the bigger brothers but maybe that will change in the future.

BTW should that not be 6 digital out rather than the 4 you said? Maybe you were thinking of the 4 axis?
Hood

Sounds very good so far. I like very much the way you say the plugin works and the ease of setup there.

Thanks for posting the feedback. Waiting forward to seeing how it works in actual life.

Dan