plasma control panel

I am finally about to begin my plasma control panel...
I intend to use a Mesa 7i76E and a Gecko G540 as that is what I have available at the moment.
Is there a convention here as to what I/O pins we use for various functions or do we just do what fits best at the time?

Cheers, Phill.

phillc54 wrote: I am finally about to begin my plasma control panel...
I intend to use a Mesa 7i76E and a Gecko G540 as that is what I have available at the moment.
Is there a convention here as to what I/O pins we use for various functions or do we just do what fits best at the time?

Cheers, Phill.

Not aware about a convention besides pin 2-9 almost always are step/dir pins, and you would need another stepgen outputing to pin 16 for charge pump on the G540.
Be aware that G540 has no microstepping, it has division by 10, so in Linuxcnc you have to use as 10 microstepping but in reality it does nothing for 9 steps and moves only on every 10'th step. Try to use as much reduction as possible to lower the error in movement caused by that feature.

Thanks Tom,
I thought that would be the case.
I have use a G540 on a mill from a parallel port for a few years and am very happy with the way it works.

Cheers, Phill.

Phill study norberts connection sheet forum.linuxcnc.org/27-driver-boards/3191...-sheet?start=0#85072

ONe thing I did wrong and never fixed was start my inputs at pin 1 and then used up the analog inputs and I never have reworked it....

Phill

I used a G540 with a 7i76E until very recently when I switched up to using G203Vs and a 75vdc power supply. Accept for the crazy fast acceleration I can get now I haven't noticed any difference in performance. My old rack and pinion drive cam roller supported table repeats to .001" all day at 220ipm. I am using alleged 600oz/in Chinese steppers with 5:1 planetary gear boxes driving a 24 tooth pinion against a 24 pitch rack. Yes, I know not quite optimum ratio for a stepper driven plasma.

I did the same thing as Rod and started connecting i/o at pin 1 but I never intend on using the coarse analog inputs that are available on the 7i76E. I don't know of any "standard" plasma wiring configuration. I can post some drawings of my wiring when I used the G540 if you are interested. I can post my hal files as well as they might be easier under stand.

John

Here is how I intended to wire mine to use a G540. As I recall I didn't use the charge pump or drive fault connections. All capacitors were removed from raw arc voltage circuit and never replaced.

John