pic chip SERIAL to step/dir and controll

[berin]

Ok, this is just a starter thread. I'll add more to it tomarrow or the day after when I get a chance.
But to give a quick summery of what I'm going ot post in this. I have a bunch of info on building SERIAL to cnc controll open source. But I have YET to find any thing which is serial to step/dir with other tipical controll logic like relays and limet switches. I'll also be posting some example design's and hex/asm code which does this. But every thing out there is based on driving straight PHASE controll.
I'm looking for a setup which takes one of these open source setup's, and rewrite the code to basicly swap the control form from phase to step/dir. And every thing else basicly would stay the same.
A setup like this which is already 98% done would be great for driving controllers which just require step/dir. I can give you a great example, many people are using the expensive GECO drive controllers. But they require being hooked to the parallel port or some CUSTOM controll setup. Wouldnt it be nice to just wire it to a serial driven pic chip. That way we could get much greater use out of windows software. Where the parallel port fail's us every time in a manner and sence of max preformance of are hardware during windows software operation.

this serial to pic-step/dir would be a great addition to the cnczone open source as well.

basicly this is the way it works.

comport-max232-pic chip ? 16f877/18f452 <- interchangable, few relays, limet switches +/- ends because there are plenty of I/O's to go around. A few resistors/transistors diodes and thats it all done. HECK i found one setup which uses a max232 chip and three 12c509's. each 12c509 was attached to the same serial line. Then all you had to do was send an address header which one of the chips would pick up on. Followed by the movment command, but the one design like that that I found AGAIN outputed straight phase controll no step/dir.

[H500]

I was wondering how it would interface to programs like mach2 or turbocnc. As far as I know, they only support parallel.

[TinkerDJ]

Berin, i'm working along the same lines, of having a serial controlled pic control seperate stepper boards. That way it can be used with the open source board designs or like you say gecko boards. To have the pic output step/dir would be more of a programming matter then hardware would it not. Picstep is a cool idea but it is only using the chips to work on each board but is still driven by lpt port.

If you haven't seen luberth's site.
http://cstep.luberth.com/

[berin]

pstep from luberth IS a serial to PHASE controll setup using the pic chip. it uses a MAX232 chip and a pic chip. That version should/would really only need a reworking to remove the PHASE controll and output step/dir, OR have one pin set aside to tell the chip weather to run in PHASE or step/dir mode. That would be a simple matter of setting a single pin HIGH or LOW.

P.S. I have prob. seen every cnc web site out there. Dont forget we who bring out new design's SET the standerd in the open source field. Because the design that works best becomes adopted and refined the most!

[berin]

These are all RS232 serial to cnc controll open source projects. But the problem is that they ALLL output phase controll. Non of them output step/dir. Any one think they could take a crack at them and edit the hex file to output step/dir instead of phase controll? I wouldnt think that it would be all that hard.

http://home.comcast.net/~scottxs/pcbcnc/cncindex.htm
http://cstep.luberth.com/PStep.html

http://www.techlf.com/cnc8am-eng.php3 the hex code file is in this next link for the 16f877 which is a TRUE rs232 controll system.
http://www.techlf.com/download/cnc8am.zip

any one good at asm? and would like to take a stab in converting the code to output STEP/DIR instead of straight phase controll.

[berin]

tinkerdj keep me posted on how your comming along because I'd love to compar notes .

h500 as far as controll, there are so many windows program which use the serial port for cnc controll its not even funny. KCAM uses it, I'd asume mach uses it but I dont know I've never used it. Downloading and dial up do not go hand in hand, especialy when your CRAP isp has a 4 hour time limet before they knock you off only to redial on again .

[TinkerDJ]

Right now i'm just waiting for some components to come in so i can start playing with the 877, i have a bit of knowledge with c++ so i'm playing with some programs. Alot of the people programming for pics seem to like basic. Other then that its down to playing with the code. Nothing i'm doing right now is diffrent then what is out there, just that i am trying to incoporate some finer details. Aswell i'm getting setup to build a router, fix my small router that i built to mill pcb's, study for school, fit some socializing in ther somewhere, so it wont be any time soon that i get a design built up, but i will stay on it.

[berin]

you know the nice thing aobut using the 16f877, is that the 18f452 is a STRAIGHT swap out! AND it runs 2x faster at 40mhz.

[berin]

at least I get my internet back today finaly!!! I've been in @#$%@$# for the past month not having any kind of an internet connection. But not only do I get my internet back, I'm getting a little bit of an upgrade going from crap dial up to CABLE internet!! At least I can finaly put into this board again!

[TinkerDJ]

Good to hear, i'm still basically playing around with the code for now. One of the big problems is that half the code examples are in bas and the other half are in c. Hey Renesas has a new design contest out. You get a FREE programmer and chips to enter the contest. Its at the circuit celler site.
http://www.circuitcellar.com/renesas2005m16c/
All you gotta do is there little demo and then answer some questions, takes about half an hour to do. Best thing i like about these guys is that the kit comes with a free C programmer and debugger prototyping board with an lcd. Definitly a must have, gotta enter the design contest though.

[H500]

I use the M16 at work. It's a good processor and very cheap in large qty's. Their tools work pretty good also. My only reservation is that I don't think the chip is that easy to get in small qty's.

[TinkerDJ]

I haven't looked actually. But if you get enough people together and do a large buy thats not to bad. That there giving away the one kit for free for the contest was my only intrest at first. But the more i have gone over the lit for them i am getting to like the design as well as they seem to have a very nice C programming environment. I'm going to see if developing s design to work as a stepper drive is feasable. But for now i am just trying to get enough stuff together to start prototyping some of my ideas.