Re: [CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO] Re: CNCing a small lathe

Danny Miller wrote:

> Yes... however, Smoothstepper does not run on EMC2 and AFAIK they have
> no plans in the works to make it do so.
>
> I had a desktop PC with a parallel port and off-board video card like
> they recommend... but I never got good results with the parallel port,
> even though Mach3 characterized it as "Excellent". I looked at the
> waveforms on a scope, there was a LOT of variation in pulse timing, and
> in a regular period I could hear a "chunk" noise about 1/sec from the
> stepper, apparently due to some odd feature of the board's chipset.
> Although, IIRC, I installed a PCI parallel port card and it did the same
> thing.
>

Well, I generally don't have these problems when using my universal
stepper controller
and universal PWM controller.

> Bottom line is it seems like there's no way to tell what kind of
> performance you'll get off a parallel port. And none perform "really well".
>

Yes, I really don't think direct software step generation works well,
especially if you have
microstepping drives, which need 8 - 10 X higher step pulse rates.
That's why I designed
the Universal Stepper Controller in 2002 to solve that problem. You can
get extremely smooth
step pulse trains up to 300 K steps/second, and can optionally use
encoders for actual position feedback, too.

> Last I checked there weren't many competitors with the Smoothstepper for
> a low priced, yet /effective/ motion controller. So without
> Smoothstepper support for EMC2, then that's a major problem for EMC2.
>

Well, as I say, I have had a board that does the same function, and
more, since 2002.
It also has 16 digital inputs and 8 digital outputs where you can plug
solid state relays
directly into the board. It also has an option for a +/- 10 V DAC to
drive a spindle speed
controller. It is a bit more expensive than the smoothstepper, but this
is a mature product and there's
no waiting list.

See
http://pico-systems.com/oscrc4/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=2&products_id=21
for more info.

Jon