PMDX or Mesa?

Looking at doing my first retrofit on BP Boss with original steppers and Gecko 203vs. Also looking at spindle control, encoder, rigid tapping, etc.. I'm leaning towards LinuxCNC but I like keeping my options open. If I had to fall back on Mach3 (which I really don't want to) I wouldn't be able to use Mesa boards, right? My other option was a PMDX-126 board so I could use mach in case I don't have time to figure out Linux. I know mesa is pretty popular around here but is there any reason why the PMDX-126 wouldn't work for what I want to do? Sorry for being a noob. Just trying to do a little research now so the rest is easy.

I am not familiar with it, but that PMDX board seems to be a parallel port breakout board. In that case, it should work with either Mach3 and LinuxCNC when conencted to a computer with a parallel port.
If you need more performance later on, you can still add a Mesa card or Smoothstepper.

Ok cool. Been doing a lot of reading and there's just so much info. The mesa boards look like the way to go. They are pretty impressive right out of the box. I just know there is going to be a learning code since I've been exposed to Linux very little.

Gecko G203vs and mesa 5i25/7i76 is a pretty common setup right?

I have no experience with either of the boards or the Gecko's (still using the parallel port), but yes, it is a common and decent configuration.
Whether the Gecko 203V works with your original steppers is a matter of comparing datasheets or asking Geckodrive.

The G203vs are pretty much what everyone uses for BP Boss original steppers. Just wanted to make sure there weren't any weird conflicts with anything even though I'm pretty sure there wouldn't be. Just asking dumb questions now so they are all smart questions later.

All that stepper stuff is no rocket science. If others have good results with the G203vs, then it should be a good choice for you too.
With drives, motors and power supply connected, the next step is to provide the drives with step pulses. If you are not yet sure if you are going for LinuxCNC or Mach3 I would suggest using a standard parallel port breakout board and a PC with parallal port. Those breakout boards can be found on Ebay as cheap as $12 or so. Then you can try both, even in a dual-boot configuration if you wish.

Parallel port allows the steppers to run up to approximately 1200rpm using G203V drives. Maybe a bit more, maybe a bit less, depends on the PC. Usually this is sufficient; stepper torque already starts to drop below this rpm.
If later on you decide that the parallel port gives you insufficient performance, you can add a hardware step generator and keep what you already have. For LinuxCNC that would be a 5i25 or comparable card. For Mach3 that would a leafboy77, a CSMIO/P device, a Smoothstepper, etc. Ask the Mach3 crowd

jonesturf wrote:

Looking at doing my first retrofit on BP Boss with original steppers and Gecko 203vs. Also looking at spindle control, encoder, rigid tapping, etc.. I'm leaning towards LinuxCNC but I like keeping my options open. If I had to fall back on Mach3 (which I really don't want to) I wouldn't be able to use Mesa boards, right? My other option was a PMDX-126 board so I could use mach in case I don't have time to figure out Linux. I know mesa is pretty popular around here but is there any reason why the PMDX-126 wouldn't work for what I want to do? Sorry for being a noob. Just trying to do a little research now so the rest is easy.

Why would you have to "fall back" on Mach? There are, as best we can tell, thousands of people
using LinuxCNC daily with excellent results. I've been using it since 1998 in one form or another
on a light production machine. If you are doing a 3-axis mill with possibly spindle control,
that is very easy and our standard configs will work almost right out of the box.

One other option is the Pico Systems boards. They may look more expensive than Mesa
at first glance, but we (Pico is my company) try to put everything in the board so there is nothing else to
buy (other than the motor drivers).

Jon

jmelson wrote:

jonesturf wrote:

Looking at doing my first retrofit on BP Boss with original steppers and Gecko 203vs. Also looking at spindle control, encoder, rigid tapping, etc.. I'm leaning towards LinuxCNC but I like keeping my options open. If I had to fall back on Mach3 (which I really don't want to) I wouldn't be able to use Mesa boards, right? My other option was a PMDX-126 board so I could use mach in case I don't have time to figure out Linux. I know mesa is pretty popular around here but is there any reason why the PMDX-126 wouldn't work for what I want to do? Sorry for being a noob. Just trying to do a little research now so the rest is easy.

Why would you have to "fall back" on Mach? There are, as best we can tell, thousands of people
using LinuxCNC daily with excellent results. I've been using it since 1998 in one form or another
on a light production machine. If you are doing a 3-axis mill with possibly spindle control,
that is very easy and our standard configs will work almost right out of the box.

One other option is the Pico Systems boards. They may look more expensive than Mesa
at first glance, but we (Pico is my company) try to put everything in the board so there is nothing else to
buy (other than the motor drivers).

Jon

Just from a Windows prospective. I have always been computer savvy and should know Linux anyway by now (been on my list of things to do for quite some time). I'm kind of pressed for time. I've been unemployed for a year and a half and have been trying to find work. Actually got a call 5 mins ago saying I was turned down for another job. My point is this will be used immediately to make money since it's not looking good so I need to get it up and running. Was just trying to keep Mach as an option even though like I said before I would rather go with Linux.

I'm going to take a look at Pico as well. Which board would you recommend for my application? Spindle control, spindle encoder, rigid tapping, etc are all things I want to incorporate. Thanks

pmdx is a good company. That being said - they are printer port interfaces. If you are wanting in the future rigid tapping - the printer port is not the best interface. It will work - but you are going to need a pretty low resolution encoder so that the printer port will count it. Any of the interface solutions for linuxcnc that do hardware stepgen, encoder counting and pwm are not going to work for mach. they are though rock solid solutions. (mesa, pico being the most popular)

sam

skunkworks wrote:

pmdx is a good company. That being said - they are printer port interfaces. If you are wanting in the future rigid tapping - the printer port is not the best interface. It will work - but you are going to need a pretty low resolution encoder so that the printer port will count it. Any of the interface solutions for linuxcnc that do hardware stepgen, encoder counting and pwm are not going to work for mach. they are though rock solid solutions. (mesa, pico being the most popular)

sam

Guess I need to do a little more reading on how those boards work. This whole time the fact that a Mesa 5i25 is a PCI card totally slipped my mind. I think that just sealed the deal for me.