Hi John A board like you are looking at will certainly get you started with step and direction. It can also allow you to test HAL things by connecting switches to pins and see them work. Back in the old days we used to cut apart parport cables and wire these in but you can't do that today with Gecko drives and 3 volt mobos. There are many stepper driven minimills out there running with these kinds of interface cards. The down side is that you are pretty much limited to steppers and a few IO. You're also limited to 3-5 volt -- a pretty big limit for an old guy like me.
The alternative you mention, a card like the M5i20 does offer many more pins and a wider variety of function. Using one of these requires a bit bigger step up to understand all the extra stuff you'll see in the HAL. If you plan to experiment with servo systems, any thing beyond the open loop, step-and-direction signalled sort like Rutex or Gecko, you'll need the ability to read in encoder signals at fairly high speed. In addition, the IO breakouts for this card or similar permit the use of higher DC voltages. This is a plus if you use prox switches and industrial grade relays. m2cw Rayh On Wed, 2007-07-25 at 06:49 -0500, John Thornton wrote: > On 24 Jul 2007 at 12:46, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > > > > Based on the description of the board, I see no reason why it would > > not work with emc's hal_parport in "I" or "O" mode. > > > > It would not work with boards like the Universal Stepper Controller or > > Pluto Servo Controller which use the parallel port in EPP mode. It > > also would not work with hal_parport in "X" mode. > > > > However, I also haven't tested this board with emc. > > > > If you do decide to try this board, please let us know your > > experiences either here on the users list or on > > http://wiki.linuxcnc.org/ on the page "EMC2 Supported Hardware". > > > > Jeff > > > > Thanks for the reply Jeff, > > Would I be better off at this stage to get something like the Mesa M5i20 card > and > learn to use that? It seems like it has a lot more capibility... My first > attempt most > likely will be with a couple of steppers or some used servos. BTW, I'm > building a > portable plasma table. I'm not too concerened with proper speeds yet just > figuring > out the parts of the puzzle so to speak. > > Thanks > John > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------- > This SF.net email is sponsored by: Splunk Inc. > Still grepping through log files to find problems? Stop. > Now Search log events and configuration files using AJAX and a browser. > Download your FREE copy of Splunk now >> http://get.splunk.com/ > _______________________________________________ > Emc-users mailing list > Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users > ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This SF.net email is sponsored by: Splunk Inc. Still grepping through log files to find problems? Stop. Now Search log events and configuration files using AJAX and a browser. Download your FREE copy of Splunk now >> http://get.splunk.com/ _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
