[cgallery]

I've seen I guess what are called "smoothsteppers" for Mach3, which take input from (I think) USB or Ethernet and convert that to a parallel output that can be used to drive a card like a Xylotex.

I was wondering, are there any CNC stepper controllers that have this feature built-in, that are halfway decent (do a good job driving steppers and have some resonance reduction built in, etc.)?

[warrenb]

The smooth stepper runs on USB or Ethernet. They aren't Parallel ports. What appear to be ports are just I/O pins. I could be wrong and someone will correct me if I am but I'm pretty sure.

[cgallery]

The smooth stepper runs on USB or Ethernet. They aren't Parallel ports. What appear to be ports are just I/O pins. I could be wrong and someone will correct me if I am but I'm pretty sure.

Well the documentation says: When used with Mach3, the SmoothStepper can act as a replacement for two printer ports, both in terms of function and connections. It can be viewed as a super printer port. If your system is currently using Mach3 with one or two printer ports, changing to the SmoothStepper should be very easy. The SmoothStepper allows computers with no printer ports, such as laptops, to control motion with Mach3.

So it seems to me that they ARE USB (or Ethernet) to parallel port converters with very specific design elements that make them work with CNC stepper drivers with parallel port inputs.

The question is (to me), whether anyone has designed a CNC stepper driver that has this function built-in already.

[ger21]

So it seems to me that they ARE USB (or Ethernet) to parallel port converters with very specific design elements that make them work with CNC stepper drivers with parallel port inputs.

They are not "converters" at all. They are motion controllers. Mach3 sends them low level instructions and the motion controller then calculates and sends the step and direction signals through their DB25 connections.


As far as I know, there are no motion controllers with integrated stepper drives.

[cgallery]

They are not "converters" at all. They are motion controllers. Mach3 sends them low level instructions and the motion controller then calculates and sends the step and direction signals through their DB25 connections.


As far as I know, there are no motion controllers with integrated stepper drives.

I wonder if there will ever be.

Some recent trouble w/ my Xylotex-based system had me thinking of an Automation Technologies drive. But it would be nifty if there were a device with the two (a motion controller and a drive) built into a single package.

[datac]

I wonder if there will ever be.

Some recent trouble w/ my Xylotex-based system had me thinking of an Automation Technologies drive. But it would be nifty if there were a device with the two (a motion controller and a drive) built into a single package.

Well, that's been tried and done before. It was called "proprietary", and thousands of machines shipped out the doors with those type of "controls". The motion control electronics were all on the same board as the driver electronics. When one side or the other burned out, you faced an expensive "repair" or full replacement.

The closest things I see to perhaps what your asking might be Flashcut's Controllers, where their motion boards are essentially "Stand-Alone" boards for retrofits that have their own drives, yet, have plug in headers that accept a motor driver that they have decided to use. So, you can buy it just for the motion generation, or have it loaded with drives right away (and boy oh boy, are their drivers SMOOTH !)

Now even there, you can call that "proprietary", because who knows exactly who's drivers those really are, or if they are contracted specifically for them.

The next level perhaps of less "proprietary" might be with Arduino CNC boards where they too have allowed simple headers on the main board to plug in driver boards, and I believe there are more than one driver board manufacturer at this point because it was pretty much declared open source.

[cgallery]

Well, that's been tried and done before. It was called "proprietary", and thousands of machines shipped out the doors with those type of "controls". The motion control electronics were all on the same board as the driver electronics. When one side or the other burned out, you faced an expensive "repair" or full replacement.

Yeah, I guess I hadn't considered how locked-down my idea would be. I was sort of thinking that something like a Gecko G540 with a built-in smoothstepper that worked via USB or Ethernet and had the appropriate driver or plugin for Mach3 would be a neat idea. But of course many people don't run Mach3. Then again, maybe they could leave a parallel port accessible so you could run either way, and maybe even offer a SDK (Software Development Kit) for people that wanted to write a driver for other software packages (besides Mach3).

Tall order, huh?

[bhurts]

The closest integrated solution I know of is k-flop and k-step from dynomotion. It will work with mach 3 or there own software. Many of the users go with mach 3 but there software is free and in my opinion much better then mach 3. Most people who do go with mach 3 seem to do so because they think it is prettier. Also in my opinion function trumps looks where cnc is concerned hands down.

Ben