This is my first impressions of the analogue version of the CSMIO/IP. I have previously used the Step/Dir version and loved it but for me the analogue version is even nicer. I am fitting it to a Chiron FZ12S and although I have not fully finished the retrofit I have seen enough to know it is working extremely well and beyond what I had hoped for.
In addition to all the things I like about the Step/Dir version the analogue version has the Index homing feature and it is very nice and works exactly as it should. The Step/dir version can also do it but it needs more setup and possibly additional hardware (depends on servo drives being used) The analogue CSMIO doesn’t require anything extra and all you have to do is enter the Home switch input and encoder count for that axis. When you home it moves to the switch at the speed you have set in Homing and Limits, it then backs off the switch at a much lower rate and then once the switch is again closed it seeks the index pulse of the encoder and sets machine cords.
Another great thing about the analogue version is the encoders are obviously constantly monitored (to close the loop) but they are also used to update the DROs in Mach, so once homed at start up Mach always knows exactly where the axis is, even after an E-Stop or if you disable the drives and move the axis manually.
The auto tuning also seems to work very well for me, so good in fact that I have not even bothered trying to tweak with manual tuning. Initially I was just using the default encoder simulation from my servo drives (4096ppr) but now I have increased that in the drives to 15,000ppr and things are even nicer.
The reason I increased the encoder resolution was I was wondering if it would help give me smoother MPG motion. I had noticed that in later versions of the plugin the motion has not been quite so smooth on the lathe that I have the CSMIO/IP-S on, it used to be silky smooth but now it is slightly rough. It is still way ahead of multistep motion of the parallel port or smoothstepper but was just annoying me that it had been as smooth as silk previously.
On the Chiron however is was much rougher and was actually getting to the point where it was too rough to be useable. The reason it was worse on the Chiron, I think, is the combination of fast rapids\ fast acceleration\heavy machine. I contacted CS-Lab regarding later plugins having rougher MPG motion and it seems some users were having issues with the axes running on slightly after stopping turning the MPG so they altered things.. This happens in Mach also if you have slow acceleration so I suspect the people with that issue had slow accelerations.
Anyway increasing the encoder counts seems to have helped as things are almost as smooth as the previous versions were on the lathe and now I feel the MPG is very useable. The reason I think it has made a difference is the CSMIO is able to respond quicker due to the higher encoder count, but that’s just my thinking, it may be some other reason.
So all in all I am extremely happy with the analogue version and I can see me updating my other machines in the future with the CSMIO/IP-A rather than the CSMIO/IP-S.
Hood