Hi Graham,

I remember seeing you at Galesburg.  I wasn't there for very long though.  Next year I will be there longer, so maybe we can chat for a while when I'm there.

I'm not really sure when the boards will be available for sale.  I sent the solder paste Gerber to the contract manufacturer today to have a stencil made.  I think it takes a couple of days for that.  I still have to order some of the mundane parts tonight from DigiKey.  I've already procured the parts that have longer lead times, so I don't have any worries about not having parts.  The contract manufacturer told me they have a 2-week lead time, but I think they'll be able to turn them around quicker than that.  Once the beta testers give it a thumbs up, then I'll have more boards made (with a few minor changes, since it is rare that a board is perfect the first time).  I'll order the first batch of production boards with a shorter lead time so that I can get them out there quicker.

The prototype in Galesburg didn't have homing, limits, or probing finished yet.  But I had nailed the motion part of it, which has to be good or it isn't worth doing.

Greg

Cant wait for this to come out, my lathe needs the extra pulse frequency and I have an encoder standing by for the spindle

Hood

Hi Hood.  I see you're in Scotland.  If I ever have any trouble with FTDI (the USB chip company), would you go over and rattle their cage for me?  (Just kidding).  They're in Glasgow, which looks like it is a couple hours from Carnoustie.

Greg

Hi Guys:

 Just a reminder that to see a smoothstepper move, the benchmark video on the downloads page is
from a smoothstepper running my mill..

Art
 
(I see traffics building on this topic already.. )

Hi Hood.  I see you're in Scotland.  If I ever have any trouble with FTDI (the USB chip company), would you go over and rattle their cage for me?  (Just kidding).  They're in Glasgow, which looks like it is a couple hours from Carnoustie.

Greg

That will be no problem, I have a pal thats even closer to Glasgow and he so ugly it will put the frighteners on them as soon as they see him:D
Hood

Hi Greg

Good to read about the new board.

Will it be manufactured to meet European Union regulations so it can be sold here in the UK, ie will you be applying for a RoHS Certificate of Compliance?

I currently use Xylotex boards on my mill and lathe - wiil I be able to use them with the SmoothStepper?

Jim

Hi Jim,

Yes the board will be RoHS, but I haven't done anything about a Certificate of Compliance.  Can someone help me out here?  Where do I go to get one?

I have not tried a Xylotex board, but as long as you can hook it up to the parallel port of a PC, it should work well.  If you have a link to a specific board that you'd like me to look at, please post it or send it in e-mail and I'll take a look.

Greg

This sounds great. I just switched back to PP and sold my G100. Never materialized as I had hoped. And I really missed spindle speed feedback. Will this be able to do probing?

Hi:

  Probeing is still being worked on, it does do G31 moves, but the interface to the probeing plugin is not quite complete. We
do anticipate probeing at about 4K - 5k points per hour by release time.

Art

Hi Greg

RoHS Certificate of Compliance.

My limited research into these certificates indicates that the companies which manufacture/sell the electonic products produce the certificate themselves.

A Google search on "rohs certificate of compliance" produces a number of examples of types of certificates which companies use - they all appear to be signed by a senior member of their respective organisations and copies are issued with each product sold.

I'm sure your company Tiger Technologies will be able to self certify and then issue your own bespoke certificate.

Hope this helps but please bear in mind I'm not an expert on this EU directive.

Jim

Thanks Jim.  Sounds easy enough.  I will do the Google search this evening.  I have received similar certificates from companies that I have ordered parts from.  It sounds like I will need those certificates to back up my claim.

By the way, a little clarification, my company is "Warp9 Tech Design, Inc" and "Tiger Technologies" is the web hosting company I am using (interestingly there is a company named "TigerTec" that sells CNC routers (http://www.tigertec.us/)).  I chose the name "Warp9" after looking and looking for web addresses that were not taken.  I couldn't believe the number of oddball addresses I came up with that were already spoken for.  warp9.com is taken, so I tacked on "Tech Design" and made a fairly short address with warp9td.com.  My motto is "Taking Mach to Warp Speed!".

Thanks again,

Greg