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Author Topic: Hello 1st post, need advice on controller, board, drivers  (Read 24696 times)

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Offline NJC

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Re: Hello 1st post, need advice on controller, board, drivers
« Reply #40 on: April 20, 2008, 01:01:20 PM »
OK, I've emailed Warp9td, I've posted a thread here in the warp9 forum, and I've posted a thread on warp9's own forum, one responce with an I'm not sure answer. So I went and did some reading on PWM, it seems this is a good way to run the servos. Seems to me that the Smooth Stepper should be used in between the pc and the pico board to take advantage of the reduction of pulses as Hood mentioned. It also seems that all I need to do is get the SS and the pico board and wire them up, could it be this simple? The pico web site has a wiring diagram of it's board pinouts and a basic diagram of how to wire a system, with that and the one from Prototrak,(the company that made the servo amps and encoders), this should be pretty simple, yes?

Scott
« Last Edit: April 20, 2008, 01:07:45 PM by NJC »

Offline NJC

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Re: Hello 1st post, need advice on controller, board, drivers
« Reply #41 on: April 24, 2008, 09:21:28 PM »
Does anybody know if Mach 2 outputs PWM? I spoke with John from Pico Systems and he says his board is not compatible with Mach3. He says it designed to work with EMC2, run by Linux. I also read somewhere that Mach2 was based off of EMC, any thoughts?

Scott

Offline Hood

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Re: Hello 1st post, need advice on controller, board, drivers
« Reply #42 on: April 25, 2008, 01:44:39 PM »
The way it seems isĀ  you have a few choices
1. Stick with the control you have
2. Get Geckos or Tek10 drives and take a speed drop
3. Get Rutex drives
4. Get new AC Servos and drives.
5. Find someone who makes PWM to Step/Dir converter
6. Use EMC


1 Would of course be the easiest and cheapest because you are doing nothing but it would mean you are stuck with the old control.
2 would not be a good option in my opinion as the drop in speedĀ  would probably be quite annoying for you.
3 may be OK, although I have seen people write about problems wit the Rutex drives I have also seen a lot that dont. I have no experience with them so cant comment.
4. Would be the preferred option but also the most expensive and may not be worth it.
5. Doesnt look like anything is available
6. Never used it, supposedly quite good but big learning curve especially if you have not used Linux
Hood

Offline kcrouch

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Re: Hello 1st post, need advice on controller, board, drivers
« Reply #43 on: April 25, 2008, 03:44:30 PM »
Scott,
Just found this. http://www.jrkerr.com/picsrvsc.pdf  It takes step and direction input (from Mach3) and generates pwm output for Your amps. I still need to see the ProtoTrak connection drawings to be sure that this is correct for Your amps, But as it takes normal step and direction inputs, You can use it from Mach3.

Kenny
Having way too much fun! Something must surely be wrong.

Offline Hood

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Re: Hello 1st post, need advice on controller, board, drivers
« Reply #44 on: April 25, 2008, 04:00:15 PM »
That looks very promising for people in Scotts position :)

Hood

Offline NJC

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Re: Hello 1st post, need advice on controller, board, drivers
« Reply #45 on: April 25, 2008, 07:40:43 PM »
I feel like it's Christmas in April, sweet moses that's good news ;D Thanks Kenny, I will check it out

Scott

Offline kcrouch

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Re: Hello 1st post, need advice on controller, board, drivers
« Reply #46 on: May 11, 2008, 06:29:23 PM »
Scott,
After much trial and error investigation, it turns out that the correct driver boards have been residing in my garage all along. The Galil 1755 board will:

Work with Mach3,
Enable fitting and use of the dual encoder setup that You have,
Output PWM signals to Your amps.

I know this sounds stupid, but the answer was in front of me all along. I am now going to pickup a cheap computer ($30.00) and make up a cable that will allow connection of a single motor/encoder combination, and also the secondary Trak encoder. I will get it working and send it to You for testing. If You are happy, send it back to me and I will need to fabricate an interconnecting PCB to interface between the 64 pin cables that You have and the 100 pin cable from the Galil board. This will take some time, but by doing it this way, You can continue to use Your mill until everything is ready and then simply swap plugs over to implement the controller with Mach3. It seems that all signals that we will need go through P1, the 64 pin ribbon cable header on the MX connector board.

Please call me if You have any questions.

Kenny


 
Having way too much fun! Something must surely be wrong.

Offline NJC

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Re: Hello 1st post, need advice on controller, board, drivers
« Reply #47 on: May 12, 2008, 09:47:50 AM »
Sounds great Kenny, I will email you.

Scott