[JasonCampbell]

Hi,

I pursue robotics as hobby and these days there are 32-bit motor controllers that operate in 10+ MHz refresh rate that can perform amazing number of PID calculations per sec and this type of controllers can drive DC motor at very high rpm while maintaining tight speed regulation.

Back to CNC, the cnc servo drive and controller combo I know is gecko g320/g340(drive) and Mach(controller) and no more (sorry I'm new to cnc)
Anyways because Mach is limited to 48000 pulse/sec due to computer's motherboard clockspeed, high speed operation is difficult even with drive-side pulse multiplier (and pulse multiplier is not a good thing since it will multiply PID error too)

So why not a cnc software that output ASCII commands? You know, software just sends out ASCII commands to make blabla number of steps in blabla pulse rate, then the drive's microcontroller performs the move accordingly. In other words, forget sending pulse at all because the controller sending out pulse is simply "a way" to give out message of step direction and rate, so replace it "ASCII way".
In this way, 48000 pulse/sec limitation is easily overcome and higher rpm will be possible.
Any drive equiped with 10 MHz 32 bit microcontroller will be capable of producing much higher PID refrash rate than needed for 48000 pulse/sec hence will be able to control the motor at much higher rate, which will result in not only an operability at higher rpm but also smoother rotation of motor(fully utilze high resolution of the encoder).


...
Anyone aware of such cnc software or standalone controller that put out ASCII(or binary) command?
Anyone aware of inexpensive servo drive that will accept such ASCII commands?
I guess it has to be a controller+drive combo.

Again my knowledge is limited to gecko and Mach, sorry.
Thanks for your time.

[SORCHEROR]

i believe gecko offers an add on board,thr G-rex 100, i think which has anolog
and can load a program into memory i believe,works with steppers or servo
check it out,the only other inexpensive way is a rutex setup

[JasonCampbell]

Wow Rutex does that through serial interface and costs 150!
Would you or anyone else know any more of these types? Please let me know any and all servo drive that is capable of receiving ASCII or binary commands instead of old-fashioned pulse trains! (willing to spend upto $250)

THANKS!

PS
Wouldn't it be nice if ULI makes one?