Using Larkin Viper200 drives with EMC2

Will a step/direction servo drive like the Larkin Viper 200 work in EMC2?

From what I am able to dig up it won't, however in the supported hardware section it says:
"Any stepper-motor or servo-motor drive that accepts step/direction signals could be used with EMC2".

To confuse me a little more, Pico has a integration board for Gecko's (step/direction). I gather the problem is
getting the encoder signals to EMC2 and not just the drives.

I am unable to find any servo Gecko equipped mills that anyone has completed with EMC2.

I bought Viper 200 drives thinking Mach3 or EMC2 but now I only want to use Emc2.

Hello Greeder,


Step/ Direction servos will work with EMC2. A lot depends on the servo amp how it is structured as to how You might set up EMC.

I am presently euning one machine with step direction brushless DC servo motors. The amp is made by a local mob ( local to me in Australia) called CNC teknics.

The amp receives step direction signals from EMC2 and the encoder signals hook up into the amp. The loop is tuned and closed within the servo amp, EMC does not see the encoder signal.

It is not inconcievable to route encoder signals to the LPT port but the speed of machine might be compromised.

MESA have an anuthing I/o card which will giv you step direction signals and read the encoder signals.This way EMC will know status of axis position should You lose drive power.

I hope this has helped You some.

I am sorry I am not familiar with Your servo.

Greeder,

Just had a look at Your servo amp.

You should not have any problems in setting it up on EMC2

You can use stepper config wizard.

Happy questioning ( had to slip this in.. i got to ask some more questions now)

Great news! So what is the downside?
On the plus side:
The Viper drive frees up a lot of controller pins compared to other drives.
When the axis stalls the Viper will fault instead of EMC2 which is fine.

Resetting everything after a fault is not what I want. Worth a lot of money to me to avoid.
Can I buy a Pico control board and use the Gecko interface board to keep my reference after a fault?
Here is the link- pico-systems.com/gecko.html
Looks like it will work if the Gecko Err/Res will translate to my Viper200 pin outs.



Update:
After researching this it looks like you would not necessarily have to reestablish your Zero positions after a fault
and the Pico Gecko card/ universal stepper card should work. Probably best to go the Pico route if you don't
have anything purchased yet.

I am not familiar with pico product . With mesa product ( Anything IO PCI card and apropriate interface card to buffer encoder signals ) You will constsntly see the encoder positional information irrespetive of drive status.