Thoughts on UC300ETH Motherboards/Breakout Boards

[ger21]

I'm going to purchase a UC300ETH tomorrow, from CNC4PC, and am trying to decide on which motherboard to get.
Either the 5LPT board or the M44 board.

I'm looking for a mix of 5V and 24V I/O.

I'm building a router that will have 6 motors, and need 12 5V outputs for the step and direction lines.
I'd like to use 24V inputs for all of my home, limits, and estops.

CNC4PC's manuals leave a bit to be desired, and can be rather confusing.
Case in point - The M44 manual says it can only use the C23, C25, and C32. These are all two port boards, but the M44 has 3 standard ports. So you can't use all 3?

Also, will the analog inputs on the M44 work with FRO and SRO?

Here's what I'm thinking for my two options.
Option 1 - M44 Motherboard
C25 breakout board for 5V I/O, controlling motors and control panel pushbuttons.
M27 board with 12 24V inputs for home, limits, and estop circuit.
M28 board with 12 24V outputs for relays

Option 2 - 5LPT motherboard
C62 breakout board for motor control and panel buttons
C31 breakout board for 24V I/O
C10 breakout board for additional 24V Inputs

Right now I'm, leaning towards the M44, but am open to any advice.
Thanks,

[ger21]

So even though the M44 manual says it only works with the C23,C25, and C32, you CAN use it with other breakout boards??

[cncdrive]

Gerry,

Unfortunately my knowledge is not enough on the M44, Terry can help you better about this, he has more experience and knowledge about this BOB.
Or please e-mail Arturo at CNC4PC, he can answer these questions the best.
What we did about the software is we assigned the pins in the firmware and API to the M44 motherboard pinout, but the final testing of the code was made by CNC4PC,
so we are not very familiar with the exact circuitry, we only know it "digitally" which is what we had to know to fit the UCCNC to the BOB.

[cncdrive]

And the -5LPT motherboard gives you the same simple interface as how printer ports are. On the outputs there are 74HC14 TTL buffers and the inputs are pulled up and a bit low pass filtered.
The ports#2 and #3 have standard LPT port pinout while on ports#1,#4 and #5 the pins 2.-9. are inputs.
The direction of I/Os are all fixed, not tristate-able.

[ger21]

Terry,
Does the C62 plug directly into the M44?

[marteng]

Hi Gerry,
I'm currently building a 5 axis router / plasma cutter / laser CNC combination, for now though I will be focusing on 4 axis CNC router, followed the plasma cutter & laser (2 1/2 axis) and finally the 5th axis. Having said this, naturally every setup would need different settings and more out / in put terminations, hence I sided with the following list of drivers setup: UC300-5LPT USB motion controller - 1 piece, HDBB2 breakout board - 2pieces and DG4S-08020 servo drive - 6 pieces. This is the basic for my 5 axis having 2 servo motors on the X axis (1 slaved). I do not know much about the M44 board and the softwarer you will be using but according to the manuals with 5 LPT ports I should have more than ample terminations (inputs and outputs) to see me through all my CNC type configurations for Mach3.
Regards
Marteng

[ger21]

Order placed.

[ger21]

It may be a year or so before I actually use it for controlling a machine. I'll wait a while before I actually decide on which breakout board(s) I'll be using.

[Battwell]

I'm using the really cheap £5 break out boards from China.
And 8 relay banks from China too ( to give me opto isolated outputs which are both visual and click !
I have 3 ports full and in use so far ( before I add the tool change rack)


For my 24v inputs I have a bank of 30 opto isolators - wired back to the cheapie break out boards.

I have all my estops wired in series to a contactor which will kill all 24v power to the machine. - except what is required not to be switched
All electronics has been behaving nicely
Just upgraded from usb 300 to Ethernet.
Found a few annoyances to report lol