Software driver

[speed33317]

Something caught my eye when I was on the Camsoft website,

Instead of using a motion card they mention use of a software driver.

What other motion cards are compatible with Camsoft besides Galil?

Could a non intelligent card like a Servo to Go card be used?


Just curious ,

SSPEED33317

[camsoft]

In reference to the Software Driver inquiry posed by speed33317. Yes, we did offer a CNC-Servo-PC Software Driver to close the servo loop at the controller rather than at the drive. This began in the early 90's for Window 3.1 written by a company called IQ Squared that CamSoft purchased the rights for as a method to use the Windows CPU to close the servo loop. It was released then discontinued and then re-introduced again a few years ago, but one of the owners here had always objected to this philosophy and finally won out. The software driver required a non-intelligent digital to analog board. This DAC card which included 3 axis of 10 vdc analog outputs plus spindle control and 48 I/O still appears on the installation CD of the Graphical Operator Interface, CNC Lite and CNC Plus products as well as the CNC-Servo-PC and CNC-Step-PC software drivers for backwards compatibility but is no longer sold. It was never uses with CNC Professional because it couldn't satisfy the performance that CNC Professional customers expected.

Another software driver for Steppers called CNC-Step-PC Driver also provided by IQ Squared used the computer’s CPU clock to send out step/direction signals through a digital I/O card, but this was replaced with a low cost stepper box motion board from Singapore for $395 that we still offer today.

We did consider the Servo to go card and we did have one here to write the driver for, but we found out it was an ISA based card that was no longer made. We spoke to the gentleman that ran the company and then tracked down the original engineer that developed it and found that he went back to collage and parted ways so there was no plans to port it PCI. Although CamSoft would be interested in any PCI version of an Analog board that can support 4 axes or more from any vendor. We have had in almost every brand of motion card marketed over the last 20 years in for evaluation at one point or another. We would consider writing a driver to either a DSP based board or non-intelligent Digital to Analog (DAC) card that any CNC Zone member can recommend that meets our standards and the group here can agree upon.

There have been several motion cards that we support drivers for still today and some that we retired because of poor sales and dealers lack of interest. The management here doesn't like to name names or discuss whom we purchase from as to remain un-bias to our vendors and keep harmony.

Today, we can say that there is a good variety of PCI, ISA, EtherNet and Serial RS232 offerings. To keep with our philosophy of non-proprietary hardware.

A new popular brand motion card driver is being developed for one of our OEM machine builders. As soon as beta testing is done it will be offered on the installation CD as a standard driver. Please keep visiting our news page to get the current status as to when that time will be : www.cnccontrols.com/news.asp

Tech Support
CamSoft Corp.
951-674-8100
support@camsoftcorp.com
www.cnccontrols.com

[speed33317]

Whoa :-)

Now that is a Reply.............