[Mariss Freimanis]

This is the pre-production prototype G215 board top-side description:

A) Motor hardware controller FPGA:
1. Phase current PWM
2. 8 profile sine-cosine generator
3. 16-bit step pulse rate generator
4. Direct multiplication non-PLL step pulse multiplier
5. Linear interpolation sub-microstep generator
6. Mid-band resonance damper

B) PIC24F 16-bit motion control generator. Axis acceleration, velocity and destination can be changed while motor is in motion.
C) 1 million axis coordinate EEPROM.
D) RS-485 interface transceiver.
E) Firmware programming header.
F) Power MOSFET gate drivers.
G) Midband resonance interface.
H) Phase current control interface.
I) Status indicators (10 different blink-codes).
J) Motor linearity profile ADC
K) I/O opto-isolators
L) Secondary clock oscillator
M) Short-circuit protect interface

SW1):
1) Sets phase current, pulse multiplier, etc. in Step Motor Drive Mode.
2) Sets Master Axis and Slave Axis addresses in Motion Controller Mode.
3) Sets Run from RS-485 commands or Run from stored memory coordinates.

V1, V2, V3) Voltage regulators
P0) Profile select
P1) Acceleration rate
P2) Velocity set
P3) Position offset
CN1) MTA-100 type 12-position control I/O connector
CN2) MTA-156 type 6-position motor and power connector

On the G215 bottom-side:

1) Primary clock oscillator 8MHz crystal
2) Oscillator frequency trim capacitor
3) Bridge power MOSFETs
N) Crystal oscillator phase-locked loop circuit. Synchronizes multiple
G215s to run coordinated x,y,z motion from internal motion controllers.

Mariss

[Larken]

Thats a nice little gadget. It probably will be perfect for single solution factory automation.
Are you going to have a ladder programming (or something like that) application for programming it ?

Will it be able to branch to different programs depending on inputs ?

[Mariss Freimanis]

We are probably going to make the G215 PIC24 MCU open source. The FPGA firmware is very tight and I guarantee you don't ever want to mess it. The ISR in the PIC is written in assembly and it's tuned to work with the FPGA. Trust me, you don't want to mess with it either.

The rest of the PIC firmware is written in C.

It allows setting any parameter you could ever want on a step motor; current set, standby current level, standby time, 3rd harmonic motor linearity compensation, Recirculate vs. non-recirculate mixed-mode switching duty cycle operation vs. motor speed, summing analog value offsets to acceleration, velocity and destination, etc. It allows you to store the above to non-volatile memory.

It allows you extrodinary control the on-board axis coordinate memory, how instructions are named, parsed and executed. You can create your own instructions. It gives you complete access to the 4 opto-isolated digital I/O and the 4 analog channels.

The G215 open-source C firmware will be well-commented. You'll get to see how we do things and if you want to do it differently, you will have the resources to do it. All you will need is MPLAB and a PicKit3 programmer/debugger.

The G215 emphasis is on firmware flexibility. It will be a chameleon you can mold to change and personalize to your requirements. Or you can go what it comes with and call it a day.

Mariss

[Mariss Freimanis]

Just another thought:

Mach3 is just a CNC program that happens to generate Step and Direction outputs. No one wishes to mess with Mach3 for of that reason; generating Step and Direction motion profile signals is extraordinarily difficult.

Now imagine that impediment is taken away.

Imagine a clever programmer who now doesn't have to deal with that arcane black art. He just sets acceleration, velocity and distance values. He does it for 2, 3 or more axis. The motors move along the vector path formed by these axis.

He works out a program that accepts G-code and a nifty GUI. He has hardware that moves the motors more smoothly than an PC Windows or Linux computer possibly can by several orders of magnitude. He becomes famous and wealthy without too much effort.

Quick on the heels of the G215 will be the GM540 (GeckoMotion 540). It will contain a 4-axis vector motion controller similar to what's in the G215.

Mariss

[ger21]

Can you make it spin continuously, like for a spindle?

[cheetahcnc]

Just another thought:

Mach3 is just a CNC program that happens to generate Step and Direction outputs. No one wishes to mess with Mach3 for of that reason; generating Step and Direction motion profile signals is extraordinarily difficult.

Now imagine that impediment is taken away.

Imagine a clever programmer who now doesn't have to deal with that arcane black art. He just sets acceleration, velocity and distance values. He does it for 2, 3 or more axis. The motors move along the vector path formed by these axis.

He works out a program that accepts G-code and a nifty GUI. He has hardware that moves the motors more smoothly than an PC Windows or Linux computer possibly can by several orders of magnitude. He becomes famous and wealthy without too much effort.

Quick on the heels of the G215 will be the GM540 (GeckoMotion 540). It will contain a 4-axis vector motion controller similar to what's in the G215.

Mariss

No PC ...real nice! Definitely following this one.

Jim

[Mariss Freimanis]

Gerry,

Yes, it can. The G215 will be offered in what we are calling now for a better descriptor A, B and C Versions. The difference will be the hardware level to which the board will be populated:

A version: Only the best and smoothest STP/DIR you have ever used. Take the crappiest step motor and dial in a trimpot the the best 3rd-harmonic compensation profile. It will behave as if you have a premium linearity motor. It has all the stuff our other drives have; morphing, mid-band compensation, 7A @ 80VDC. In addition, it has short-circuit protection and a killer direct multiplication step pulse multiplier. Closest living relative: G213V.

B version: All of the above plus a "VCO" function. It generates it's own STP/DIR pulses from its internal G100-quality digital step pulse generator. 32,768 CW and CCW equally spaced motor speeds. The STP/DIR inputs become limit switches or speed selector switches. The speed you want is set via on-board CW and CCW trimpots. Another trimpot sets the acceleration rate and no PC computer is needed.

Bump the CW limit input, (STP) and the motor moves at the trimpot set CCW speed. Bump the CCW limit input, (DIR) and the motor moves at trimpot set CW speed. Bump the Stop input, (DISABLE) and the motor stops. Let go and it accelerates back to the speed it was going at. The ACEL trimpot sets the rate of acceleration. Need to know when the motor is stopped? The Run/Stop, (FAULT) output indicates motor stop.

C version: This is the full-on motion control version. Combine 2, 3 or more G215s to form a multi-axis mtion controller. It will run 2D, 3D or more vector moves in a constant velocity path. You can store up to 1,000,000 3D coordinates as concatenated line-segments and the G215s will coordinate between themselves to draw perfect constant contouring 2D, 3D or more paths. They can actually talk to each other to do this.

Except for the version A (or version A setting on the B and C drives), the G215 will not be a Mach3-friendly drive. It won't be any PC CNC program friendly drive at the higher settings because it will rely on its own and better internal motion controller.

Mariss

[Mariss Freimanis]

Progress update: Late this afternoon today we got the G215 firmware to execute its first vector move. Not much, just move a motor 7.071 revolutions along a 10 revolution 45-degree vector. Start, run at 3,000 RPM and stop.

Not much in the big scheme of things (even for the G215) but this evening everyone left Geckodrive seriously jazzed. It meant the PIC played nice with the FPGA and both played very nice with the motor. It also meant 16 months of hard design work paid off its first dividend. I cannot describe the feeling.

The motor jumped accelerating and jumped again decelerating. It almost landed on the floor. It was equipped with a data-logging encoder and it said the motor moved exactly 7.071 revolutions (give or take 0.02 degrees).

Mariss

[H500]

The motion controller is especially intriguing. It will create interesting possibilities.

[ger21]

B version: All of the above plus a "VCO" function. It generates it's own STP/DIR pulses from its internal G100-quality digital step pulse generator. 32,768 CW and CCW equally spaced motor speeds. The STP/DIR inputs become limit switches or speed selector switches. The speed you want is set via on-board CW and CCW trimpots. Another trimpot sets the acceleration rate and no PC computer is needed.

So it sounds like by putting switches on the step/dir lines we could use this as both a standard stepper, and also as a spindle motor?

[PEU]

I'm curious, is there any software in the market, open source or commercial, that could potentially use these drivers?


Pablo

[Ch_Irawan]

Hi Mariss,

Haven't deal with cnc thing anymore, I incidentally read this thread and I can't help my self to write something.

IMHO, if you are going to build a multi axis motion control system then do not start thinking about it from single axis, but do it in reverse from multi axis down to single axis.

I made a simple motion (3 axis) controller some years ago, still can be seen in here.

There is where the mistake meet me.

Just my 2 cents.

-ichan

[harryn]

If I understand it correctly, then it might be possible to use a 3 axis router plus a rotary axis and a stylus tip to mechanically "scan" an object, store this somehow, then go back and produce it with an actual router bit.

This would be done without the need for any separate software or hardware package ?

In addition, it could be used as a stand alone, multi axis cnc controller, so somehow entering in G code or some other method of movement instruction ?

Thanks

Harry

[Mariss Freimanis]

Well, this is a mess. I need a fixed-width font (courier) but the miserable tab key is being ignored as well as more than one space between characters. I can't make heads or tails of the result because I can't set it in columns. Post was going to be G215 progress. The code below was supposed to be an example of how to program the G215 to run continuously between CW and CCW limit switches at different CW and CCW speeds. An input (arbitrarily IN3) would decelerate the motor to a stop while '0' and accelerate it to the previous speed while '1'. Closing both limit switches (arbitrarily IN1 and IN2) would exit this loop to do other things.



LINE CMD VALUE ELSESKIP# COMMENT
---- --- ----- --------- -------
0000 ACL____123__________SET ACEL TO 123
0001 VEL+___5678_________SET VEL TO 5678_CW
0002 ITE____IN1,+1___1___IF:______CW-LIM IS ON
0003 VEL____4567_________THEN:____SET VEL TO 4567_CCW
0004 ITE____2,+1_____1___ELSEIF:__CCW-LIM IS ON
0005 VEL+ 5678 THEN: SET VEL TO 5678_CW
0006 MEM VEL,M1 ELSE: STORE VEL IN MEM1
0007 ITE /IN3,+2 2 IF: RUN_SW IS OFF
0008 VEL 0 THEN: SET VEL TO ZERO
0009 GTO 11 THEN: GOTO LINE 11
0010 MEM M1,VEL ELSE: RECALL MEM1 TO VEL
0011 ITE IN1&IN2,+2 2 IF: CW-LIM AND CCW-LIM ARE BOTH ON
0012 VEL 0 THEN: SET VEL TO ZERO
0013 GTO 15 THEN: GOTO LINE 0015
0014 GTO 2 ELSE: GOTO LINE 0002

0015 (EXIT ABOVE AND GO DO SOMETHING ELSE)

[PEU]

Mariss, use code /code inside brackets to post code, it shows the way you wanted to be.

Something like this, but I don't know where each section ends

LINE CMD VALUE ELSESKIP# COMMENT
 ---- --- ----- --------- -------
 0000 ACL____123__________SET ACEL TO 123
 0001 VEL+___5678_________SET VEL TO 5678_CW
 0002 ITE____IN1,+1___1___IF:______CW-LIM IS ON
 0003 VEL____4567_________THEN:____SET VEL TO 4567_CCW
 0004 ITE____2,+1_____1___ELSEIF:__CCW-LIM IS ON
 0005 VEL+ 5678 THEN: SET VEL TO 5678_CW
 0006 MEM VEL,M1 ELSE: STORE VEL IN MEM1
 0007 ITE /IN3,+2 2 IF: RUN_SW IS OFF 
 0008 VEL 0 THEN: SET VEL TO ZERO
 0009 GTO 11 THEN: GOTO LINE 11
 0010 MEM M1,VEL ELSE: RECALL MEM1 TO VEL 
 0011 ITE IN1&IN2,+2 2 IF: CW-LIM AND CCW-LIM ARE BOTH ON
 0012 VEL 0 THEN: SET VEL TO ZERO
 0013 GTO 15 THEN: GOTO LINE 0015
 0014 GTO 2 ELSE: GOTO LINE 0002

 0015 (EXIT ABOVE AND GO DO SOMETHING ELSE)

Pablo

[Mariss Freimanis]

Pablo,

Thank you very much for your solution. The problem I had shows how little I know.

Mariss

[Mariss Freimanis]

So here is the very preliminary command set for the new G215 7A, 80VDC drive. Any comments, additions and/or criticisms would be very welcome.

Mariss

[hbaba]

I check from time to time on the geckodrives site, facebook, and this thread but still there is no date or general time frame for g215 availability.
Is there a better location to read about that or is it looking more like early next year before orders will be taken/filled?

I'm still waiting in anticipation.

[ger21]

When it's on their website, you'll be able to order it. These things always take longer than expected, and it's better to not give out a release date until it's ready, as people will always complain if it doesn't meet the release date.

[Mariss Freimanis]

hbaba,

I haven't meant to ignore your question but I'm up to my neck in firmware debugging and qualification. The G215 has been an grueling two-year project and we are now less than a month away from completion. I don't think you'll be disappointed when it's released. My guess is you'll be amazed; I really think its features will amaze people.

Mariss