Solved - LinuxCNC does not work with new Delta ASDA-A2 drive

> downside to the ethercat is its ONLY ethercat. i wish it has pulse as well. would be more versatile.

That's right. Now I remember that this is what pushed me to choose the M version. It seemed to me at the time that the pulse/dir was the simplest method, so it was less risky for me (this machine was my first build), and I paid some extra to get another option for the future. Turns out that CanOpen does not seem to be a viable option with LinuxCNC, but well...

If EtherCAT works well, wouldn't it make the pulse option look rather outdated ?

(Still need to do a lot of reading before I can consider an upgrade to EtherCat)

ihavenofish wrote:

cool.

downside to the ethercat is its ONLY ethercat. i wish it has pulse as well. would be more versatile.

It does if you use an Ethercat stepper driver. There are many. I use rtelligent ECT86

talking specifically about delta servos.

"If EtherCAT works well, wouldn't it make the pulse option look rather outdated ?"

basically yes. pulse and analogues went out of date in the mid 90s and everyone went separate ways with serial protocols. Pulse stuck around for hobby people but the dust has settled now and ethercat is the way forward for sure.

Whether it is your present depends on a lot of factors. Usually money

>Whether it is your present depends on a lot of factors. Usually money

OK. In my case, Pulse/Dir has been working reasonably well for my needs so far, and most importantly I was able to get it working with very limited (aka known) knowledge to start with.

However, since I chose the most simple/cheapest way using parport and basic Bob, I have no room to implement things that would be really useful, such as 4th axis, tool gauge, feedback to LinuxCNC, etc... Any solution that would remove these limitations would require money, so I might as well go for some sort of industry standard, or at least a solution that is not strictly dependent on a single vendor.

This discussion conforts me in the idea that EtherCAT seems a logical choice in this respect, so thank you all for sharing your knowledge and experience image missing /media/kunena/emoticons/smile.png