Hi all, I have a followup question to my earlier question about adding steppers to my setup. The (long-term) goal is to create a custom toolchanger that will incorporate three steppers and three or four relay-controlled widgets.
If I was to add a second parallel port, I'm certain that I could "HAL it up" to control the extra motors and such via gcode. However, based on suggestions made by John Kasunich and others, it seems that isn't the normal way to change tools. (It would be quite inconvenient to have to insert lots of extra gcode in a program to spin the tool carousel etc.) Apparently, a PLC (either hardware or software based) is traditiuonally used for such purposes. It seems to me, though, that a plc + ladder logic programming is capable mainly of sensing switches and turning on and off relays...which is great if you have a toolchanger that only needs to be told _when_ to change tools and _what_ tool to use, but not how to physically spin steppers to accomplish this. I would really like to be able to take advantage of the kinematics etc. that EMC provides to move the extra steppers, but it's looking like I might have to create a "semi-smart" toolchanger that can be commanded with HAL+ClassicLadder. To summarize: I hope I'm wrong about this, but it seems as though I have to either a) control the extra three motors via gcode or b) construct an external device capable of moving the steppers by itself and control device that via the PLC. Suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Pat .................... Patrick Ferrick Town of Webb School Main Street Old Forge, NY 13420 (315) 369-3222 (315) 369-6216 .................... ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This SF.net email is sponsored by: Microsoft Defy all challenges. Microsoft(R) Visual Studio 2008. http://clk.atdmt.com/MRT/go/vse0120000070mrt/direct/01/ _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
