Rafael Skodlar wrote: > > This brings up another option, build an open source EMC controller > PCI[e] card with slow, medium and high speed ports that could be used to > control buses. Speeds would need to be determined based on what is > required for machine world. If build with an FPGA, it would be very > flexible and handle a lot of logic and speed and could be programmed for > different needs: use with lathe, 3D routers and torch machines, or even > run real time functions. This may be what Paul Corner has been ranting about for some time. Port EMC(your flavor here) to one of the ARM all-in-one CPUs, and keep the GUI on a PC. There are a bunch of details, the biggest being how to access the G-code and configuration files. It would probably require more memory than they currently fit into such chips as the AT91SAM7X series, I think 256 K it the max. There apparently is a substantial speed penalty for external memory. There would need to be some process on the PC supporting file serving to the ARM, but I suppose NFS would work. Without all the Linux OS overhead and virtual PC nightmares of the current PC architecture, the 70+ MIPS of the ARM processors might be sufficient.
Once the file serving question is handled, the only serious remaining effort (I think) would be porting rtapi to one of the competing ARM RTOS options. A very interesting idea, but it could be fairly time consuming to deal with all the intricacies of such a big porting effort. It would sure make a NEAT package, and the board could be quite cheap. These ARM microcontrollers are in the $7 - 14 range, they need an additional $12 or so of parts to implement Ethernet, and maybe under $10 for extra memory. I would think that pat could be done for under $100. Add an FPGA to do step generation or PWM drive and a bunch of I/O connections, and you are up to maybe $200 for a commercial product. Jon ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
