AXBB-E simultaneous 6 axis ?

[Justin]

Hello My first post,

I'm considering purchasing a AXBB-E, in the manual it states,

"The controller can output a maximum of 400kHz stepping frequency and can work with
upto 6-axes, however only 8 dedicated step and direction signal pins for 4 axes are wired out
on the board, but the I/Os on the software side are freely configurable to any pins making it
possible to use all 6 axes if required."

I don't quite understand this, can someone please explain how this would work.

Can the AXBB-E control 6 axis's simultaneously?
Does it mean that the software can be configured to use output pins on the IDC connector as 5th and 6th controlling them interdependently ?


Cheers

[cncdrive]

It means that there are 8 pieces of unisolated buffered outputs on the AXBB-E which can be configured and connected as step/dir signals to motor drives.
One step/dir pair is one axis, so the 8 outputs are 4 axis in total.
The UCCNC has all I/Os freely configurable on any pins. So any outputs can be configured as axis step/dir.
The AXBB-E has an extension port too, port#3 which has an additional 12 pieces of outputs where you could configure the rest of the step/dir signals (the 5th, 6th axis or whichever axes you want to configure on that port).
And then yes, the AXBB-E can control 6 axes simultaneously.

[Justin]

Excellent! Thanks for the informative response, looks like I'll be ordering an AXBB-E.

[cncdrive]

OK, sounds good. If you will have any questions please feel free to post here or ask us in email.

[Justin]

OK, sounds good. If you will have any questions please feel free to post here or ask us in email.

I have another question I hope you can answer,

My understanding of the CNCdrive motion controllers, correct me if i'm wrong, is they incorporate a processor or microcontroller that receives commands from a PC via the UCCNC application (G Code or otherwise) which are used to generate step and direction signals from within the controller, respond to inputs etc.

Apart from the AXBB-E incorporating a breakout are there any differences in terms on the onboard processing power between the AXBB-E, UC400ETH, UC300ETH, and if so does this impact the amount of processing the PC is doing and by how much?

Cheers
Justin

[cncdrive]

Yes, that is correct, the AXBB-E is a motion controller just like the UC300ETH or UC400ETH, but it also has breakout board functionality.
Breakout board functionality is nothing more than signal conditioning, optical isolation and voltage and current level boosting.
No, there is no difference in "processing power" between the UC300ETH and UC400ETH and AXBB-E, they all have the same microcontroller.
Furthermore the AXBB-E has high speed optocouplers o nthe I/Os for the breakoutboard functionality which can throughput much higher frequencies than most other breakout boards can,
they are 10Mbit/sec optocoupler, so they are faster than what signal frequencies the AXBB-E can generate and work with, so it is not a limit at all.

[Justin]

Yes, that is correct, the AXBB-E is a motion controller just like the UC300ETH or UC400ETH, but it also has breakout board functionality.
Breakout board functionality is nothing more than signal conditioning, optical isolation and voltage and current level boosting.
No, there is no difference in "processing power" between the UC300ETH and UC400ETH and AXBB-E, they all have the same microcontroller.
Furthermore the AXBB-E has high speed optocouplers o nthe I/Os for the breakoutboard functionality which can throughput much higher frequencies than most other breakout boards can,
they are 10Mbit/sec optocoupler, so they are faster than what signal frequencies the AXBB-E can generate and work with, so it is not a limit at all.

Excellent! Still haven't decided which I'll purchase but am looking forward to experimenting and installing it

Is there any plan to release a Linux version of the UCCNC software?

[Justin]

Decision made! Next up, two UCSB's

[cncdrive]

Nice. I'm wishing you good machining soon.

[dezsoe]

Did you check this: New special offers UC300ETH + breakout board combos? You have 5 days.