Re: I'm curious

Why on earth would I

> drive several hundreds if not thousands of pound worth of machinery

moving

> at high speeds with pulses from a parallel port and using DOS no

less.

> When you can talk to an professional industrial grade indexer via

serial or

> device driver and run it under Windows or Linux if you must. These

indexers

> are very intelligent and handle all the I/O, Encoders, drivers,

backlash,

> deadband, linked moves, curve interpolation, limit monitoring, and

more.

Noob Grade 2 John here.........(Yeah, I gave me a promotion!)

So what exactly do I use for software to drive these with? How do I
get the G Code in there? If you've got a better solution, please
teach us. I've eyed PLCs for a while, but the learning curve is
steeper, I think, but I don't know. I just don't know how to make
them go.

There's no "Industrial Automation for Dummies" out there for me to
read either. These groups are it.

EMC can be closed loop, but I just was not patient enough to deal
with the Linux stuff.

I'm going with the Mach / Sound Logic BoB / Gecko / Servo Motor route
because I got it to work, a small industry has cropped up around it,
and at least one real pro I have talked to thinks Mach is all that
AND a bag-o-chips.

Art has hinted a couple of times at going closed loop, but hasn't. I
assume due to the fact that many, many users do not see a real need
fo it. My conclusion is that closed loop must not be that important
under a Mach / Gecko scenario 'cause it works.

It's not full closed loop, but my drives fault if they get behind. I
also understand that on these other systems you have to shut down, re-
home, and re-start anyway, so what's the difference? Am I mistaken?
As long as the servos stop when bad things happen the net net should
be the same.

Am I taking AN easy way out? You betcha! Easy = Cost Effective.
Something in this project should be easy.

But I'll keep looking at these other solutions.

-jd