g-rex, what is the primary use?

[h_2_o]

i've been looking at the grex and it looks like a really sweet piece of electronic hardware that will drive many things, but what is the primary use you guys are going for with this? i can see it being used in cnc/robotics/full automation, but havn't really seen a direction or maybe a better way to say it is a product area that doesn't have a good solution as of right now. anyway i was curious as to what people are really wanting this for.


thanks

[ger21]

You'll get smoother running steppers, because the pulse train will be much smoother. And if you're using servos, you can use much higher res encoders, due to the drastically higher step rate.

[h_2_o]

will this completely replace the driver or will a driver be needed also? I guess i'm still missing something here. let us say i'm retrofitting a knee mill and have pretty good powered servo's would i use this instead of 3 g320 drives or would i use this in conjunction with the drives?

thanks for the help

[ger21]

In conjunction with the drives. The G-Rex actually outputs the steps to the drives , as opposed to the PC's parallel port with Mach2/3. Up to 4 million steps per second, per axis. With servos, you'll be able to use much higher count encoders and spin at higher rpm's.

[miljnor]

ive seen another post somewhere(cant remember where) that said that the g-rex might output the pulses too fast for some drivers???

how likely is this scenario going to be???

[h_2_o]

ok, i think i understand now. for the avg mini-mill or knee mill IMHO the grex wouldn't really be worth it. however if you started getting into larger things and controlling turrets and spindle rotation and speed then this would be a better situtation for you. thanks for helping out

[rpm mill]

The G-rex can slow down. 2MHz is the max rate for most encoders and amps. With very good equipment you like to have a lot of bandwidth and the G-rex can do. If you have high end equipment you may need the extra bandwidth I can only say good things about the G-rex and I have had mine for over 1 month. Actually good is too mild GREAT fits this hardware better. My G-rex is handling a bunch of IO (input - output). The cost savings will be enormous for us on future machines. I am also working in the direction of from parasol id to the mill. In other words you load the SolidWorks model into the mills computer, answer some basic questions, set up tooling and offsets. Machine your part NO G CODE....

[smoker]

Hi, could you explain this some more?
"I am also working in the direction of from parasol id to the mill"
Looks very intresting....

David

[ger21]

Originally Posted by miljnor ive seen another post somewhere(cant remember where) that said that the g-rex might output the pulses too fast for some drivers??? how likely is this scenario going to be???

Unless it's a pulse width issue, I don't think it's an issue at all. It will output pulses as fast as you want it to. I think the original post you're referring to was saying that you may not be able to use it to it's fullest potential, because the drives can't take advantage of the full speed.

There's a guy using a Mach4 alpha version on the Yahoo group that says it's working outstanding, even though the software is very early in developement.

[miljnor]

I take it The mach4 alpha was only issued to certain people??? I didn't see it on the mach websight.

[ger21]

You can get it at www.machsupport.com Bottom link.

[crazyman]

G-rex is all new to me.
I was considering purchasing a cnc kit that would use 3 G320s to control servos on IH bench top mill.

Should I change that plan to use the grex instead?
what reasons to change or not to?
And does Mach4 get issued to all licensed Mach3 users free of charge?


things seem to be getting exciting with this new higher output step rate.