Author Topic: Campbell Designs BOB with PMDX-411  (Read 2415 times)

tday7

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Campbell Designs BOB with PMDX-411
« on: August 31, 2016, 07:20:45 AM »
Hello,
 Will the PMDX-411 work with Campbell Designs Breakout Board Plus? And does the 411 have a backlash option with Mach4?
Thanks,
Troy

Steve Stallings

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Re: Campbell Designs BOB with PMDX-411
« Reply #1 on: August 31, 2016, 07:48:06 AM »
Yes, the PMDX-411 should work fine with the Campbell Designs board.

The firmware for the PMDX-411 does not yet support backlash compensation.
It is being worked on and will be a simple plug-in update when it becomes
available.
Steve Stallings
www.PMDX.com

Bob at PMDX

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Re: Campbell Designs BOB with PMDX-411
« Reply #2 on: August 31, 2016, 10:56:32 AM »
However... the PMDX-411 does not support the step and direction pin-out that the Campbell board uses.  It will still work, but the step and direction signals will NOT match the silkscreen and connector arrangement on the Campbell board.  The Campbell board presumes the 4 steps signals appear on parallel port pins 2,3,4 and 5, and the direction signals on pins 6, 7, 8 and 9.  The PMDX-411 supports step signals on pin 2, 4, 6 and 8, *or* on pins 3, 5, 7 and 9.

So, here is how to configure the PMDX-411 and your breakout board:

(1) Presuming you are starting from scratch with the PMDX-411, make a copy of the PMDX-Sample Mach4 profile.  Start the Mach4 loader, click once on the "PMDX-Sample" profile, then click on "Copy Profile".  Select a new name, and leave the "screen set" field blank to use the default wx4 screen set.  Then click on "OK" to create the copy.  Then load that new profile.

(2) In Mach4 go to the SmartBOB configuration dialog by clicking on the "Configure" menu and selecting "Plugins..." and then clicking on the "PMDX SmartBOB".

(3) Click on the "Motor Config" tab.  In the upper left corner is a section labeled "Step/Dir Pin-Out Configuration".  Select the "Step on pins 2, 4, 6 and 8" option.  Then click on OK to save the changes.

(4) This is how the step and direction pins will map to the silkscreen labels on the Campbell board:

PMDX   Breakout Bd
Pin#      Silkscreen      Motor Driver
-----      -----------      -----------------------
2      Xmotor Step   STEP terminal on Motor0*
3      Ymotor Step   DIR terminal on Motor0*

4      Zmotor Step   STEP terminal on Motor1*
5      Auxmotor Step   DIR terminal on Motor1*

6      Xmotor Dir      STEP terminal on Motor2*
7      Ymotor Dir      DIR terminal on Motor2*

8      Zmotor Dir      STEP terminal on Motor3*
9      Auxmotor Dir   DIR terminal on the Motor3*

* Motor0, Motor1, etc. refer to Mach4 motor numbers.  These can be mapped to any axis in the Mach4 configuration.  In the PMDX-Sample profile they are mapped to the X, Y, Z and A axes respectively.

Bob
Engineering Hell: Everything's right and nothing works.
Bob's Corollary: If everything's right and nothing works, double check your assumptions.