Centroid Driver Boards

[beamsjr]

I have a centroid encoder and driver boards from an old cnc router and I am curios if i might be able to use the driver boards some how with a breakout board. Do these boards use step and dir signals from the encoder? If they do how would I figure out what pins are what?

Here is a link to one of the driver boards...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/3807474...7619243987528/

If not is this stuff worth anything? Should I just toss it?

Thanks, Joe

[keebler303]

Your link doesn't work. It will probably be hard to find a service manual or diagram for these old boards. It might be possible to reverse engineer the connections and what type of signals they take. With google, a few little parts and an oscilloscope, you might have a sporting chance at it. I would be very surprised if they were step/dir, probably analog (+/- 10V). There is at least one option to convert step/dir to analog (YAPSC 10V) but If I were you, I would put them on ebay and use the proceeds to upgrade to some more modern drives with step/dir inputs and an active support/repair network. I am always surprised how much people will pay for spares to keep their ancient machines running in case of a breakdown.

Matt