2011/2/6 Yi-Shin Li <y...@araisrobo.com>: > So, who would be willing to ask MESA for their upcoming 7I62 EtherCAT > anything I/O card? > http://www.mail-archive.com/emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net/msg23101.html
Wow, thank You! I did not know that some work in this area actually is going on - I mean 7I62 card. 2011/2/6 Kirk Wallace <kwall...@wallacecompany.com>: > This Ethernet issue has come and gone in the past and the reason EMC2 > doesn't use it, so far, is that it hasn't brought enough to the table to > justify the effort to make it happen. The current options for realtime > control on EMC2 are the parallel port and FPGA cards on the PCI bus. The > reason these have survived is that they present the shortest hardware > and software distance between a real time command and the hardware that > makes the command a reality, and also the shortest distance between > synchronous elements. Ideally, I think one would want the control > hardware connected directly to the I/O or memory pins on the processor. > > On the other hand, to keep cost down, we need to deal with cheap > consumer hardware which is turning more towards plug and play, mobility, > entertainment and communications, which mostly doesn't apply to CNC > control. That is why I think using a laptop, which might be great for > watching movies on an airplane, and LAN technology for complex and > dynamic networks, is not appropriate for controlling one machine that > may only be moved twice in its life time. There is just too much fluff > between the processor and the CNC hardware. The only way to offset the > fluff is to increase the speed. The way to increase speed is to increase > complexity, which needs to be offset by more speed ... (BTW, SPI is low > fluff and speedy) > > Frankly, I think the desktop PC / parallel port / PCI/FPGA solutions we > have now are the best balance of cost and speed, and will be for at > least the next five years. I do see a long term trend where desktop PC's > will go away and we will need to find a different platform. I think the > hardware will still be available, but will move to the specialty market > and become expensive. And once it will have became expensive, it will have moved out of the "cheap and available hardware" concept. I agree that cheap hardware is the best way, how EMC user can benefit also from EMC being available for free - this makes total cost of software+hardware package low and available for many hobbyists. The thing is that for some time already I have been thinking of bringing EMC from hobby level to professional level. The welding robot is my first (hopefully more will follow) commercial machine. I have seen for myself, what EMC is capable of on my waterjet machine and now I know that it can do _a lot_ more. The problem is that I (with some hints from mailing list) might be able to find a solution, if I need some tweak in EMC, but I definitely know that I am not able to solve major hardware issues, like creating an EtherCAT slave unit. So my main concern now is to find a way to find a I/O solution to link EMC software and machines' hardware - stepper/servo drives, switches, sensors etc. My first priority is reliability, second is cost-efficiency, which includes not only price of the board, but also the price of required accessories. I prefer paying extra 50 USD for EtherCAT I/O card, which I can use with _any_ motherboard - not only cheapest, but also smallest, who may lack not only LPT port, but also PCI slot. That would allow me cutting down time (and associate cost) of configuring EMC by using all the same hardware in each machine. When I went to my favorite PC store to get parts for welding robot's controlling PC, I was surprised to find out that there are no D510MO boards available any more. There was D525 board, which is D510's successor, but I had a bad surprise: while D510 had onboard header for LPT port and I want to put all the I/O hardware in the same case, I counted on the fact that I would attach 26 pin ribbon cable right to the header. It turned out that Intel had decided to return to old times and placed LPT port socket in the rear port panel. So now I will have to attach LPT cable on the outside of the case and then drag it back into case. IMHO it not only does not look nice and professional, but it creates additional cost, because I will have to tweak a 30 cm long LPT cable - again some waste of time, because my soldering skills could use improvement. With the last paragraph I just tried to tell that I (and probably others) do not want such surprises. I would like to be sure that my intended I/O hardware solution, regardless if Intel change something in their products' specs or no. Unfortunately I consider LPT port to be history already (I know that many will disagree, but that is how it goes - diversity of opinions drives this world). So besides this offtopic, basically what I would like to know - is there any progress with 7I62 card? Viesturs ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The modern datacenter depends on network connectivity to access resources and provide services. The best practices for maximizing a physical server's connectivity to a physical network are well understood - see how these rules translate into the virtual world? http://p.sf.net/sfu/oracle-sfdevnlfb _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
