Re: running the BDI EMC on a real machine

Jon...On your web page you had a nice block diagram of CNC retrofit for a mill. Would you please block diagram the Pico system as if interfacing to a 3 axis cnc mill with limit switches, stop switch, connections to servos, and etc.?? Would be helpful. Thanx. // Also when you have a machine up and running with the Pico products under BDI I would be very interested in your feed back. I like the idea of simple parallel port connected to a "black box" rather than a ISA drop in card. // By the way what is the servo amp minikit?

Regards...Richard in Michigan.

> > Jon....I went to your machining page and read with interest the Pico Systems info regarading the parallel port driven controller/drivers: 4 channel 16 DAC board, 4 channel 24 bit quadrature encoder counter board...plus other products yet to come...(ppmc set). I take it you will be writing drivers for EMC??
>
> Done! There are drivers for the encoder & DAC boards in the BDI, I think. These may not
> be fully up to date. Anyway, I can get the software to anyone who needs it.
> I also have a test version with digital I/O working here. The one remaining little
> detail is to have the condition of digital I/O (spindle, coolant, etc.) to display
> on the screen. Right now, they function at the digital outputs, but the screen
> doesn't show the change.
>
> > I would appreciate additional info as to application, availability, price, and how this board set will compare to STG-II. Thanx...Richard in Michigan.
>
> There is a price list link on the page http://pico-systems.com/PPMC.html
>
> The digital I/O will be ready pretty soon, I'm shooting for late January.
> The encoder and DAC cards are ready now, and several are in use.
> With the addition of the digital I/O card, it does everything the STG I and
> II do, plus more! The digital inputs are all opto-isolated, the digital
> output has positions for 8 solid state relays right on the card, so you don't
> have to have an external Opto-22 mounting card. Finally, there is
> separate emergency-stop control logic on the digital I/O board, so you
> can have past-limit switches, emergency stop mushroom switches,
> servo amp fault relays, etc. tied into this function to cause a hardware
> emergency stop totally bypassing all software. (The DAC card has
> a watchdog timer that will cause an estop if the computer stops updating
> the DACs.)
>
> Jon