BLDC with EMC2

[tbyrd0918]

I'm using Mach3 with ncPod, but as you know it's Windows based. What is available for EMC2 for USB, Firewire, Ethernet, etc. (par is obsolete) that will give me enuf for 6 axis and a good handful of IO for tool changing? ncPod is fast enuf for my apps but limits the number of available IO pins.

T. Byrd

[andy55]

There is nothing for USB/FireWire/Ethernet as far as I know. The problem with USB is latency, I don't know about FireWire/Ethernet.

A lot of people are using the Mesa M5i20 (www.mesanet.com). It's a PCI card so you'll need a desktop computer (not a laptop).

It's FPGA based so you can configure how many pins you use for motion control and how many for I/O. With the 4-axis setup you get two sets of 16-in 8-out I/O.
If you need 6-axis then you can use the 8-axis FPGA config and that will leave you with one set of 16-in and 8-out I/O.

AW

[Coyote73]

I dont know if I understood well, but I think that EMC2 uses all cards like servo-to-go,mesa,.. in the same manner. That is that FPGA doesnt run PID at all, only counters are true real-time. PID loops are calculated in EMCMOT routine in rt-linux. This gives a compatibility of choosing different motion boards, which in fact become a I/O board with high speed counters. If you indend to use FPGA to compute PID you should make new code for FPGA and for EMC2.
The best way would be to have a servo driver with standard communications protocol and let do the driver all necessary regulation loops. EMC2 could only work the trajectory and send servos position setpoints. A normal USB or ethernet communication would not be the best, since TCP, UDP cannot be used as real-time communication. There exists SERCOS III protocol, it is very similar to ethernet (hardware layer) but its real-time isochronous communication, build for servo communication.
It would be great if someone could write drivers to use a some standard communication board (sercos, profibus, devicenet,..) to use with EMC2.