Re: Interface. Gauging interest.

Dennis,

Sounds very promising and it is something that has potential. You
should look at the G-Rex thing as that seems to be a baseline for
this sort of thing. It establishes a price, performance, and value
baseline.

I think the primary concern is getting it to interface with some of
the more popular CNC control applications - that will be key to
establishing it's value on the market. In other words, if it isn't
supported by the existing or pending CNC control applications, it
has not place in the market till it does.

It does appear that modular is a good approach with this market.
So "all in ones" seem to limit their acceptance. Here is an
example...

Let's say you design a unit that has the interface, power supply and
the drives with the drive capability limitted to only 3 amps and 30
volts. That is the limitation of that unit as a whole. Whereas if
you make it modular in design, you could have the interface, general
I/O, and motor control (Step-dir) on the "base unit" and the power
supply and motor drives as plug-in type modules. This allows the
person to spec out the power supply and the motor drives to fit the
application. The "all-in-one" has a very finite limit with regard
to application and re-application as the person upgrades their
hardware etc.

Chris







--- In CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO@yahoogroups.com, "Dennis Schmitz"
<denschmitz@...> wrote:

>
> I make a living designing high end embedded processors.
>
> It's like physical pain seeing people controlling units with PCI

cards and

> printer ports. From my perspective, if you're selling a multi-

hundred dollar

> servo motor you can at least design in a modern control interface.

So why

> not? USB is cheap. Heck I could do it in my <cough>copious</cough>

spare

> time.
>
> And I've seen plenty of computers come out without any other

interface. For

> that matter, both of my laptops lack printer ports, to say nothing

of a pci

> slot.
>
> And lots of cheap microcontrollers have multi-channel DACs and

ADCs,

> especially automotive units. I just did a quickie design using a

Freescale

> MPC5554, which sells for under $50 and contains everything you

need, and you

> could probably run it all from the power available from the port

(5 watts).

>
> Anyway, software guy I know says he can do the code in just the

onboard

> memory to do the control loop, and I told him that USB2.0 is

plenty fast

> enough for real-time control of the axises and he wouldn't have to

do that

> much, leaving the PC to do the number crunching.
>
> So I'm envisioning a box plugged in to a USB port, no external

power, and

> able to control an entire machine's worth of servos or steppers and
> associated sensors. Run from laptop or outdated kid's computer.

Get some

> Linux wiz to write an EMC2 driver and you're in business.
>
> How much would a box like that be worth? Figure an enclosure like

a Gecko so

> you can bolt them all up together.
>
> What if it included the power amps all in one package? Figure six

output

> channels and a USB interface. Six Geckos have about $300 worth of

parts,

> tops (not including the box.) Would it be worth it to you to have

it all in

> one box, connected to any old computer with a USB?
>
> With a faster CPU, you could run a real-time Linux on the box

itself and

> take high-level commands over ethernet. I'm pretty sure you could

even get

> EMC2 running on a gumstix (http://www.gumstix.com) and use any

computer on

> the network as an X server to run it.
>
> There's plenty of high end stuff that have PCs embedded in them,

but why

> reinvent beer for the thousandth time? Get rid of the ruggedized

keyboard

> and display and move it over to a comfy chair at your desk.
>
> So,
>
> 1. How much would you pay for a USB I/O box to control servos

(requiring

> Gecko or equiv to drive the motors)?
>
> 2. How much would you pay for this USB I/O box if it had all the

drive

> electronics?
>
> 3. How much would you pay for a box slightly larger with a built

in computer

> running EMC2 and communicating with a shop Ethernet network?
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>