One concern is using a standard that will soon be obsolete. The parallel port has mostly been replaced by usb; ISA has been replaced by PCI, which has been replaced by PCI-X.
Even the fastest ethernet is still backwards compatible with the original standard. Another nice thing is cost and availability. Ethernet stuff is cheap, while things specifically designed for an industrial environment are often very expensive. Industrial stuff becomes obsolete, and when it does, good luck finding documentation or affording replacement parts! Ethernet is not affected by noise very much - it can be used as is in a factory. Where I work, there are several router racks on the floor. Cat5 is used for everything on the floor, and fiber is used from the rack to the server room. Ethernet provides built-in isolation to 1500V IIRC. Very, very useful if the machine and computer controlling it are on different circuits! Can it overcome its drawbacks? 10baseT is not very complicated - here is a working transmitter in verilog (http://www.fpga4fun.com/10BASE-T0.html) Mark --- Kirk Wallace <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > There is some discussion on another thread about using Ethernet > for EMC > I/O. I can see that there is the appeal of plentiful and cheap > hardware > available with Ethernet, but there seems to be a fair amount of > hacking > needed to make it work. For my education, why not use a > communication > standard designed, from the start, for machine control? Can > Ethernet > overcome it drawbacks to become a full-fledged method for machine > control communication? > -- > Kirk Wallace (California, USA > http://www.wallacecompany.com/machine_shop/ > Hardinge HNC lathe > Bridgeport mill conversion pending > Zubal lathe conversion pending) > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------- > This SF.net email is sponsored by: Splunk Inc. > Still grepping through log files to find problems? Stop. > Now Search log events and configuration files using AJAX and a > browser. > Download your FREE copy of Splunk now >> http://get.splunk.com/ > _______________________________________________ > Emc-users mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users > ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This SF.net email is sponsored by: Splunk Inc. Still grepping through log files to find problems? Stop. Now Search log events and configuration files using AJAX and a browser. Download your FREE copy of Splunk now >> http://get.splunk.com/ _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
