Re: [CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO] Black box again

Hi Dennis,

What Cypress USB chip is on the Activewire? AN2126 series? We're
trying to choose a USB chip for our hand held automotive test product.
We need to move fairly large amounts of data, for watching ignition
systems. AND, I'm thinking I get to PLAY with it for some other
things... ;>)

Is this a U.S. company? How's their support/service? Their "manuals"
seemed a little light. However, all they need to add to the USB chip is
eeprom, clocks, buffers, so maybe they don't need much?

I got the impression that it could be controlled from a DOS program?
hummm...


Alan KM6VV


Dennis Cranston wrote:

>
> Gentlemen
> I am playing around with the 'black box' idea using an ActiveWire
> board from http://www.activewireinc.com/ as the black box. This uses the
> USB port and provides 16 bits of input/output. The board contains a EZ-USB
> chip. This chip contains the USB communications and a super 8051
> microcontroller. The nice thing about the EZ-USB chip from Cypress
> Semiconductors is that the 8051 program is downloaded from the host to the
> chip when the USB cable is plugged in. No prom burning etc. Currently I have
> the PC talking to the board, a demo 8051 program going though the Keil
> Compiler and lots of ideas. My aim is to just have the 'black box' handle
> timing. Let the PC calculate the step/direction/time-between-steps and shoot
> this information down to the ActiveWire board, letting the USB Fifo buffer
> take care of bursts of data. The Activewire board then just has to keep
> track of the timing. and output the step and direction pulses based on the
> time-between-steps index calculated by the PC.
>
> Side note: This experiment was kicked off by discussion of USB use on this
> list last Winter. As some one has said, to many ideas, too little time.
>
> Dennis
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Tom Eldredge [mailto:harmonyt@...]
> Sent: Monday, June 25, 2001 11:52 AM
> To: CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO] Black box again
>
> Gentlemen,
>
> Some time ago we were discussing the "black boxes", Pic controllers etc. I
> haven't heard much from the guys who said they are working on these lately.
> I think there is still interest in having a "black box" that one could
> serially send motion commands to, which would do some spooling of the serial
> commands (enough that the black box could smoothly output the step and
> direction pulses in real time). This would free our PC's to do other control
> functions. Such boxes would only need (in my opinion) to be able to to the
> above, and to be able to be called (interrupted) to a controlled stop during
> a move. If a move was interrupted, the black box would report back to the
> control which move was interrupted. The control could then use encoder feed
> back to decide what to do after any interrupted motion. I know there are
> some IC's out there which will do part of this. I would like to see some
> black box capable of handling a move of about + - 320,000 steps in one move,
> in order to give a resolution of a tenth of a thousanths of an inch, and 32
> inches in any one direction from a zero point. I think this would cover the
> distances most of us would need to cover in our lathes or mills.
>
> I think the serial port is going to be with us for a long while.
>
> Some time ago, I programmed a Basic stamp (SX) to do most of this, but it
> was too slow and was limited to 32,000 steps. It would also be possible, in
> my opinion to do the proportional math with the PC for the various axi
> involved in a particular move, and the command could include specifications
> on whether the controller should accelerate and/or decelerate the moves to
> relieve the black box from having to make this decision.
>
> I am also aware that this is exactly what LP indexer does through software,
> but I consider that an expensive proprietary alternative. I also own a copy
> of LP indexer, which I am not using at this time. I would like the hardware
> alternative better. Microkenetics used to say they were planning to have a
> product like this, but I gave up waiting on them.
>
> Is there anything seriously missing in this "wish list?"
>
> Update anyone?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Tom Eldredge
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
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