MESA CONFIG

Hi, I'm interested about Mesa motion control oriented boards, using EMC2. Particularly, I've look for a motion set for a plasma gantry machine,
(please see picture) and, upon view Mesa hardware boards range, I still have some doubts on what type of boards is appropriate. The problem is
we have a 6 axis application but not of all axes are "real" ones, I mean:


1. X1 ->Left side of the torch carrying bridge. (moves in X direction); Has an ABZ, line driver type encoder; Step Dir motor.
2. X2 ->Rigth side of the torch carrying bridge. (also moves in X direction, as slave of X1, but with it's own position correction regard to it's own encoder;
with this config we avoid loss of perpendicular geometry with respect to Y axis). Has an ABZ, line driver type encoder; Step Dir motor.
(I've read a lot of posts about using "gantrykins" that can overcome these issues, but for now no one about sucess)
3. Y ->This is a typical Y axis on a plasma machine; Has an ABZ, line driver type encoder; Step Dir motor.
4. Z ->Torch heigth; No encoder (open loop); Step Dir motor.
5. A ->Handwheel for manual mode; AB encoder, single ended outputs, about 200 imp/rev.
6. B ->For torch heigth, we thought in a THCAD board (Using THC component of EMC2 HAL?); So it involves another high speed counting input.

So there are 5 counting sources, and 4 step dir pulsegens. Can do it with 5i20 and Hostmot2, for example? Is it enough with 7I47 for interface these signals to FPGA board?
Frecuency from encoders rarely exceeds 60Khz. The aim is, if this HW can do the job, I could do the job (some day wasting a lot of patience)

Also, we have the habitual service I/O; Inputs are 24VDC PNP sensors, about 16 inputs in total. And Outputs, which are also tipically sourcing (PNP), 24VDC, which are 8 in total. So what is recommended
for interface the FPGA PCI board (5i20 or other)? May be 7i37COM?. I plan to drive these I/O with HALui and Classic-ladder.

I've viewed the latency test motherboards table. There is a quite price jump between an ASUS AT5NM10-I (about 130€ fully equiped) and M5A88-M EVO (about 300€), but in theory, since Mesa
FPGA card avoids pulsegen and encoder count in software mode may be the expensive one is a waste of money.

Finally, now with the actual hardware we using, the torch tip touch the metal sheet, and then moves up (Z+) to a "start plasma arc" predeq fined height, so does mean it that we must use the
300 volt variant of THCAD board?



So thanks for listening, and sorry for our poor knowledge about EMC2 "ecosystem", now we are moving from Mach3 (I hope:laugh: ).

Mario Recio.

For Mesa parts. I would use a 5I20, a 7I52S and a 7I37TA or 7I37COM
This would give you 6 single ended or differential encoder inputs
and 6 differential step+dir pairs on the 7I52S and 16 24V inputs + 8 24V outputs
on the 7I37TA/COM using the SVST6_6 config for the 5I20

Hi, thanks to everybody for your very fast response.

It seems the best config would be the one suggested above. (5i20 + 7i52S + 7i37COM).
I plan to use gantrykins, and i've read somewhere that there is a EMC 2.5 that includes
a pncconf with more advanced configurations. Then you can set a basic config and later
do the rest job with hal in plain text.

Hi BigJohnT,
Thanks for yor answer. I'm not clear to understand your answer, since my english is just bad. What you mean with "Mack" and "touch off work"?
warm greetings, Mario.