EMC2 Supported Hardware

Supported Hardware

The purpose of this page is to describe the electronics that interfaces your PC to your CNC machine. For information on selecting a PC to run EMC2, please see Hardware Requirements. Not a definitive list, by far.

Emc2HardwareDesign - general notes on the hardware interface designs that work well with emc2

Commercial PCI/ISA cards

Servo-To-Go ISA: http://www.servotogo.com/

$888 for 8 axis model II card (8 encoder inputs, 8 DAC outputs, 32 bit I/O, 8 analog inputs)

Vital Systems Motenc-Lite Servo PCI 4-Axis Card and I/O Boards: http://www.vitalsystem.com/

7541: $595 includes 8 DAC outputs, 8 analog Inputs, 4 encoder inputs, 32 digital inputs, 16 digital outputs

7544: $495 includes 8 DAC outputs, 4 encoder inputs, 32 digital inputs, 16 digital outputs

Mesa Electronics Anything I/O boards (plus all the Servo & Stepper Daughter Boards, etc) http://www.mesanet.com/

The Anything I/O boards are all based on FPGAs, so can be loaded with different firmwares at the start of EMC.

Firmware defines the number of encoder, PWM, stepgens and General Purpose IO.

5i20, PCI, 200K gates, 72 I/O pins, $200

5i22, PCI, 1.0M or 1.5M gates, 96 I/O pins, $370-$430

5i23, PCI, 400K gates, 72 I/O pins, $230

4i65, PC-104/Plus?, 200K gates, 72 I/O pins, $200

4i68, PC-104/Plus?, 200K or 400K gates, 72 I/O pins, $230 (for the 400K gate version)

3x20, PCI-Express, 1.0M or 1.5M or 2.0M gates, 144 I/O pins

look here for more info: mesa cards

Axiom Measurement & Control AX5214H 48 Channel Digital I/O Board (ISA): http://www.axiomtek.com/

$ price ?

Siemens EVOREG Motion Control Board?

$ price ?

Vigilant Products PCI-ENCDAC 4 Axis Controller and EXPDIG I/O boards: http://www.vigproducts.com

$1000 for 4 Axis Controller

Opto22 PCI AC5 adapter card- 48 points of I/O usually used with their relay racks.

$475 new, Ebay -a lot less! Details here:OptoPciAc5

Commercial Parallel Port Based Systems

Pico Systems Universal Stepper Controller: http://pico-systems.com/univstep.html

$250 includes 4 step/dir outputs, 4 encoder inputs/counters, 16 digital inputs, 8 SSR sockets

Pico Systems PWM Controller: http://pico-systems.com/univpwm.html

$250 includes 4 pwm outputs, 4 encoder inputs, 16 digital inputs, 8 SSR sockets

Pico Systems PPMC Board Set: http://pico-systems.com/PPMC.html

$780 includes 4 16-bit dac outputs for +/- 10 V analog servo amplifiers, 4 differential or single-ended encoder inputs, 17 digital inputs, 8 SSR sockets

Using a NetMos parport card

Mesa Electronics 7i43: http://www.mesanet.com

$80. The 7i43 is an FPGA-based "Anything I/O" board. It has a Spartan3 FPGA (200K or 400K gates) and 48 I/O pins. EMC supports this board with the HostMot2 firmware, which is available in many different configurations providing encoders, PWM generators, step/dir generators, and general purpose digital I/O pins.

look here for more info: mesa cards

Step & Direction Drives

Note: any Stepper-motor or servo-motor drive that accepts step/direction signals could be used with EMC2. These are just some examples of inexpensive stepper/servo drives.

[Xylotex]

$155 (3-axis board only) to $525 (4-axis board, motors, and power supply).

Buffered step & direction signals, selectable microstepping, 2.5A/phase.

Gene Heskett says:

I'm using a 3 axis board myself, and have been since emc1 days, using a radio shack breakout board to remap the signals. Now particularly since hal now has mapable i/o pins, the pinout diffs between the Xylotex boards and other driver boards is a total non-issue & the rs232 breakout box isn't needed anymore. Emc2 even comes with a halfile made for the xylotex boards.

[PMDX-150]

1 axis, 3A, bipolar, 1x/2x/4x/8x microstepping, idle current reduction, etc. Requires separate breakout board. $73/axis

[Gecko Drive]

Stepper drives and Servo drives.

$147 G203V Stepper Drive 7A 80V Short-circuit, Reversed-polarity, Over-temperature, Over-voltage protection.

2.5V, 3.3V and 5V logic compatible inputs, 350 kHz maximum Step pulse frequency.

[Motion Control Products MSD542].

1 axis, RMS 3A, microstepping drive. Looks identical to the $78 [Keling KL- 5042].

[Granite Devices]

Up to 160V 40A servo-drive cards for DC, AC, BLDC and linear servo motors.

For brush-DC servo motors, one drive can control two motors yielding cost around 100 euros/axis.

[stepperworld.com sp3]

3 axis stepper drive - sp3 from stepperworld.com. [pin setup]

[www.rutex.com]

Servo drives, both brush and brushless.

[Semis Co.]

Manufactures analogue and STEP/DIR servo-drives.

[mechapro.de]

stepper drives,optocopler board,power supply,4axis interface board with relays (can be modified to 5 axis) and more.

micro-steping 1 axis 2A 36 Euro 4A 74euro 3axis 2A 98 Euro nice quality (solder yourself).

might be a good option if you live in Europe

Breakout Boards, Power Supplies etc.

[CNC4PC]

$41.60 C1G - Parallel Port Interface Card (For Geckos)

[Antec]

Toroid Transfomers and Power Supplies

$140 63VDC 600W with regulated 5VDC and 12 VDC input 120VAC or 240VAC

[PMDX]

Breakout Boards and other accessories for step and direction controls

DIY hardware known to work with emc

[LiniStepper]

The open-source [LiniStepper motor driver] is known to work with EMC2: [video of a Linisteppers driving a Sherline 2000], [configuration settings] It is Microchip PIC based and supports full, half (at full power), as well as 6th and 18th microstepping with linear smoothing, for small to medium sized Unipolar motors. The [source], [circuit], and several [user contributed board layouts] are available as well as [full kits] with pre-programmed PIC chips. It uses [PMinMO connector] so you can mix and match with the drivers and BOB's from [PMinMO] including those listed below.

L297/L298 stepper driver

A single-sided board based on the L297/L298 chipset. up to 46V supply, 2A/motor, constant-current chopper. For bipolar motors. Half- or full-stepping with step and direction inputs. PDF format for DIY pcb. Thru-hole components. [PMinMO.com L297-8]

[Pluto-P Servo]

An FPGA board with open-source firmware and emc2 driver. 4x20kHz PWM, 4x8MHz quadrature, 10+ digital outputs, 8+ digital inputs. Uses EPP parallel port. Needs compatible servo amplifiers (up/down or pwm+direction input), such as L298 servo driver (below)

L298 servo driver

A single sided board based on the L298 H-bridge. Up to 46V supply, 2A/motor. For DC servo motors with TTL-level encoder outputs. Driven by PWM input. PNG images of schematic. So far this has only run cradek's lathe experimentally, but the results are good and with the new parallel port "x mode" (8 outputs, 9 inputs, supported on some but not all parallel ports) it may be possible to run a 3 or 4 axis machine with this scheme. http://emergent.unpythonic.net/projects/01142347802

Medium Current Quadrature Drive Servo System

This is a full servo board up to 7amp +-24v. Its on board DSPic processor reads quadrature position signals from EMC2 stepgen type 2 and uses an onboard PID loop driving a current amplifier to keep the actual position close to the commanded position. Drive setup is through a serial port. It is best suited for 12 to 25 volt dc/servo motors with TTL encoders. Pic source code is GPL. PCB eagle project provided as well as milling and drilling G code files for machining the board with EMC2. http://members.shaw.ca/swstuff/dspic-servo.html

Toy designs

Low-current stepper driver

A single-sided board based on the ULN2803 darlington chip. Simple, but very low current, <500mA/motor. Not recommended for anything but a toy. Half- or full-stepping with 4 winding activation signals per axis. PNG images of schematic and board. This design could be adapted to drive 3-axes, because there are 12 available outputs. http://axis.unpythonic.net/etchcnc

other hardware we've heard about, but we don't know if it will work or not

Hardware that doesn't work

• USB devices cannot be used to control motors or perform other "real time" tasks. Some USB devices which appear as keyboards, joysticks, and mice can be used for user interface tasks through the hal_input driver.
• See Emc2HardwareDesign for details of USB, RS232, and Ethernet interfaces.

What about the machines?

If you want to see pictures of big iron, check out the Case Studies page