RE: [CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO] Re: parallel port finally obsolete?

Steve,



There are USB connected stepper drives, like those made by Phidgets but in
general they are not useful for a CNC machine as there is no coordinated
motion between axis. The general arrangement of components would be:



CNC controller (i.e. Mach 3) ->

Motion Controller (i.e. Parallel port driver, SmoothStepper, KFlop) ->

BOB/Isolation board ->

Stepper motor driver



To get coordinated motion all of the steppers have to march to the same
drummer, they have to be controlled by the same motion controller.



Jeff Birt

Soigeneris.com



From: CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO@yahoogroups.com
[mailto:CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of scyvt
Sent: Wednesday, February 22, 2012 3:52 PM
To: CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO] Re: parallel port finally obsolete?

Thanks everybody who replied to my original question.

However I'm not sure that a central point of my query was noticed: I asked
about USB-to-motor (stepper) driver hardware, not USB-to-BOB. (Ethernet
would be OK too). So Smooth Stepper, for example, would not meet that
requirement. I think Flashcut has one, but I believe it is dedicated to
their whole system. Kflop might do that, but it doesn't seem suitable for
beginners. Geckodrive attempted something incorporating this function and
much more, but abandoned the project.

Steve





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