Re: [Machinekit] Beginner Machinekit question

[schoone...@gmail.com]

Hi I am not sure whether you have already bought the hardware and now want to know what to do with it, or if it is the proposed hardware. If you buy a Mesa 5i25 or similar, you can run up to 10 steppers from a proper computer using step/dir signals and get an industrial standard board with lots of I/O. USB is useless for any form of realtime system, there is no guaranteed latency. (if you look it up on the linuxcnc forum there are whole threads explaining why) CanOpen and RS232 are not supported natively by machinekit and are not for the faint hearted or beginners. I personally would not touch Pololu stepper drivers or similar clones and these seem to have plenty of extra 'froth' you don't need. They are not even cheap at £31.95. I would go for properly heat sunk Leadshine variety drivers that exceed the max rating of the steppers and will give you years of trouble free service. You can for instance, get DM542's (50v 4.2A) for about £17 in UK and even less if you buy direct from China. I won't even comment upon whether it is possible or in any way desirable to run 8 steppers off a BBB. Just my opinions in part, but I build CNC machines that just work.  I have used other cheaper components in the early days and always found them a false economy and troublesome in the long run. regards On 26/09/18 08:37, Lewis miles wrote: Hi, I am new to MachineKit and LinuxCNC, I am looking to control a machine which has 8 axes (for a 3D printer). I am struggling to find information about how I can interface with the variety of motors that will be used in the machine, and whether I should use a BBB cape or PC with MESA board.    The motors to be controlled are Brushless Maxon Motors Controlled by Maxon EPOS4 controllers (which can interface through RS232, USB 2.0, CanOpen and accept position or velocity or step/direction commands) Dynamixel actuators (which can interface through USB or RS485 and accept position or velocity commands) and Stepper motor driver (Step/dir or USB).    I would really appreciate any advice on whether these types of hardware interfaces may work with machinekit/HAL and whether they have been done before. If all my motor controller can be controlled via USB 2.0 could an AMD64 be used without a MESA board? Or if you have any other thoughts about what boards to use that would be great.    Maxon EPOS4:  https://www.maxonmotor.com.au/medias/sys_master/root/8827037548574/17-EN-439-440-442..pdf    Dynamixel XM430-350R  http://www.robotis.us/dynamixel-xm430-w350-r/    Stepper Driver:  https://www.pololu.com/product/3131      Cheers,   Lewis -- website: http://www.machinekit.io blog: http://blog.machinekit.io github: https://github.com/machinekit --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Machinekit" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to machinekit+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/machinekit. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- website: http://www.machinekit.io blog: http://blog.machinekit.io github: https://github.com/machinekit --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Machinekit" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to machinekit+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/machinekit. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.