7I42TA Question

I am upgrading my plasma machine from a 3 axis(4 stepper, 1 axis slaved) to a 6 axis (7 stepper, 1 axis slaved) machine and I wanted to know if I could get all 7 motors on one 7I42 card?

If not which card can do the most step/direction ports?


Thanks

Dave

the 7i42 is an addon card which supports 24 connections , you'd need 2 connections per stepper pulse & direction , so that takes care of 14 pins , if your looking at using an enable for your stepper drives that can be handled by one pin and just take all the to that point
you would then need limit switches and other ancilary uses etc .

you do not mention which mesa interface fpga you already have , i.e 5i20 , 7i43 etc , so depenadant on your interface you have 2 or 3 ports available so either 48 or 72 available pins
the mesa 7i42TA connection interface addon can support up to 12 stepper interfaces i.e one 7i42 card in full i.e 24 pins

Dave,

The one axis you have slaved, if you do not intend to home / jog it separately from the master axis you can drive both the master and the slave from the same pins.

Rick G

What are you doing with all the extra axes on the plasma?

I am using 2 extra axis for a bevel head to bevel around the complete profile. And one more axis to add rollers off to the side of the table to allow pipe cutting.
I guess I will learn about kinematics when I setup the 5 axis head

you do not mention which mesa interface fpga you already have , i.e 5i20 , 7i43 etc , so depenadant on your interface you have 2 or 3 ports available so either 48 or 72 available pins

I have ordered the 5I20 card with a 7I42TA along with another io card from mesa (cant remember the number but its the one with the transistor outputs good for 1 amp)

I am connecting this to two gecko G540's

Thanks
Dave