USB breakout board alternatives

Hi,

I currently operate my Emco 5PC CNC lathe through a parallel port with the 'standard' conversion to allow Mach 3 to drive the Emco electronics.

Since I need several more inputs and outputs, I decided to go 'USB' and bought a PoKeys board allowing USB control of the lathe - however I am deeply unhappy with it and the general level of compatibility along with several safety related issues and I am now looking around for alternatives.

Ideally I would like to move the 2-axis drive step/direction onto USB but more importantly, I need a number of inputs/outputs that can be controlled/read by Mach 3 as well as the standard I/O such as Index and limit switches.

I have seen some correspondence on the 5i25 from Mesa but I am open to hearing what anyone else can suggest - ideally with a reliable Mach3 setup..

Thanks,

Simon

Simon - some pre-coffee thoughts.

1) there are those that say "stay away from USB" because it is not a smooth, time sensitive protocol.

2) Mesa 5i25 boards work with LinuxCNC. I have a couple of them here with me at home, and I think they are great. The new Tormach PathPilot control has gone from Mach3 to LinuxCNC(ish) and the Mesa boards.

3) There is a LinuxCNC person "Sam Solokik" who has integrated LinuxCNC with one of these old machines. Google "sam solokik linuxcnc emco" and see what comes up.

4) I'm experimenting with a Beaglebone + Xylotex DB25 "cape" which seems to be doing well driving my little Gecko-540 based lathe.

Just for your info - John.

John,

1). Open to other suggestions such as Ethernet - but I am trying to get away from printer boards which are ever more difficult to locate and built to ever lower quality levels. One of the chief issues I have with the PoKeys is that there is obviously some disconnect between the board and the PC since starting it seems to be vaguely random but associated with moving the joystick and also there is s serious lag between inputs to the board and activity at the pc - or rather ibn-activity since movement continues long after stopping the input.

Whether this is Mach3 or Pokeys or a combination of the two - I don't care, but it is seriously not right to a dangeroyus degree...

2). Yes, I was aware they work with LinuxCNC but I have a paid up Mach3 licence and extra coding and effort focused on Mach3 as well as having my mill completely driven by Mach3. I was hoping someone could report on their use with Mach 3.....

3). Thanks - I may have to go down this route.

4); Good luck - I still have my Unimat3 which I was given when I was 18, although it constantly trips the ECB now and needs 'investigation'

Simon

Have you looked at **THIS**? A friend has one fitted to his home brewed CNC mill and it works really well with Mach3.

Hi,

Mach3 does not officially support interfacing via USB ... Issues with timing

I have used these products successfully **LINK** They are also available on ebay (Search for "Mach3 USB" limit search to EU - Seller chz.01 is based in France) - Mine was around €30 - £22 It loads a special driver.

(Uses your existing parallel interface breakout board)

Other people have had success with a UC100 but this is a lot more expensive.

Dave

Edited By Steambuff on 11/06/2015 18:23:23

I am the sam mentioned above. I was able to create a config for linuxcnc that allows you to connect to a emco compact 5 pc without any circuit board hack. It has a couple of neat features.

-use the existing 100line + index encoder for accurate threading.

-Runs half stepping up to about 16ipm then switches to full stepping. (pretty sure that is what the original software did) (higher precision at lower feeds and allows for faster rapids.)

-No circuit board hack.. (I was able to create the needed clock signal for the octal latch)

http://www.cnczone.com/forums/emco-lathe/186598-machinist-software.html

sam

Edited By John Stevenson on 13/06/2015 01:03:41

I've just used a UC100 to connect a newer PC to my mill, I was using a 14 year old PC with windows 2000 via the LPT port, now using Win 7 64 bit via the USB port.

All seems good so far and it was a very easy swap over.

Steve

Edited By Bowber on 20/07/2015 19:19:46