Re: [CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO] Digital Readout software - packages on the net for Linux

David A. Frantz wrote:

>Hi John;
>
>I didn't know that. In fact I've seen little information on
>interfacing EMC to encoders. I would have imagine though that the
>realtime system would be needed, if this is not so it makes EMC an even
>more likly candidate.
>

You would have to run the simulation or non RT version of EMC, otherwise
it will attempt to run processes under the RT scheduler system. A DRO
has no need for RT, as long as you get 3-5 updates a second.

>
>Is there a page you can reference in the EMC documentation to get me
>started? To be honest EMC would be nice because of the upgrade path
>that it offers to full CNC, I just never thought about using it as a DRO
>replacement.
>
>

You need an interface to the enocders, specifically an encoder counter.
There is a Dan Mauch/Tok Kulaga DRO card, see
http://www.timgoldstein.com/kulagadro/dro.html

which has driver software in EMC.

Or, there is my Universal Stepper Controller board which also has drivers
in EMC, and includes 4 encoder counters. See
http://jelinux.pico-systems.com/univstep.html

I don't think there's a "page" in the EMC docs about this. But, I can
sure advise
you on what you need to do to make it work, especially with my board.
I know most about the DRO functionality because I use it to test certain
things in my hardware, such as verifying that the encoder counters are not
losing any counts.

Jon