Massive confusion with Mesa Daughter Cards

I"m really confused by the daughter cards, i see that some list step/dir outputs, encoder inputs, etc.. Can the general purpose I/O's be used for these functions or is there some circuitry included in the daughter boards that make it work with the main PCI card?

Getting down to what i would like to do, gantry router, rack and pinion, with two steppers on the gantry. I'm wanting to get some hardware control of the step/dir with one of the mesa solutions, also will be using quadrature encoders. The only daughter board i can find that seems to have encoder inputs as well as step/dri outputs is the 7i85S. Or am i just confused and you can use any of the daughter cards and just setup the pins for there needed use? Any help is greatly appreciated as i am thoroughly confused.

for a pci solution use the 5i25 with the 7i76 daughter card , that gives you steppers , encoders , and analog spindle 10v , with perhaps a 7i73 pendant card if you need additional
encoder or i/o inputs , is an option

with perhaps a 7i73 pendant card if you need additional encoder or i/o inputs , is an option

You can even just connect the second channel of the 5i25 (P2) (7i76x2) to a normal BOB and use an encoder for an MPG pendant through that.
That is what I did to save an extra daughter board, as I had a spare BOB anyway.

Once you get your head around them, they are flexible and lots of I/O

regards

Thanks for the replies!

The 7i76 shows to have a single encoder input (for spindle it says). Back to my original confusion, when the description for the daughter boards says it only has one encoder input that means you can only hook up one encoder right? Like there is some hardware on those particular pins of the daughter boards that condition the signal for that particular application and normal I/O pins won't work? Maybe i should have drank some coffee before getting on here lol!

The 7I85S is the most appropriate daughtercard for step/dir + encoder setups
when using the 25 pin FPGA cards like the 5I25

For additional I/O (for limit switches. coolant , tool changers etc), you can add a 7I84
(the 7I84 connects to the 7I85S)

For encoder inputs and step/dir output, the logic is all in the FPGA. The
daughtercard only provides signal conditioning (and multiplexing in some cases)

hence the reasoning for adding the pendant card ,

can you give me an idea of what you want to add , and i'll work it out for you
what do you want encoders for is this for MDI handwheel or for scales etc

putting say scales on a stepper configuration is not a good idea , although it can be done , it's far better to get the mechanics correct to obtain resolution .
rather than electronically
but of course fitting a handwheel as a mdi is fine , you only need one , as you can switch between axis as needed , also hence the pendant add on

it's a question of functionality you need or your thinking etc

i have just about all my machines fitted with mesa cards of one sort or another , they are quite configurable
but it's best to workout what pins you need first .

I have an idea for a linear encoder (and before you all get to thinking too much, no i'm not trying to make money with it, just playing around and trying to get the best possible accuracy from my machine lol). So i'm wanting to be able to have encoder inputs to close the loop.

I keep having oddities when machining parts and i can't quite figure out what the deal is so my brain went into crazy mode deciding to go all the way and close the loop because i'm tired of wasting material and i can't seem to find the problem. I know this isn't the best way to go about it most say but the idea of the system knowing where it is and being able to correct errors really gets my inner nerd jumping up and down.

At first i will most likely just run open loop and see if the hardware step gen will solve my issues and if all goes well just leave it at that (except i really want to play with closed loop lol). I just want to make sure i buy hardware that is going to do everything i need it to do the first time and not end up with three different boards when one or two would have done the same job.

For a 5i24 which is the appropriate card for step-dir / encoders & general inputs outputs ?

There are lots of options but for example, A 7I52S will give you 6 buffered differential stepgen outputs
(6 step pairs and 6 direction pairs) and 6 encoder inputs. for 24V I/O, you can add a 7I37TA or two
for 24 I/O (8 outputs and 16 inputs) . If you need a lot of 24V I/O, a 7I44 and some sserial I/O cards
can expand the I/O to 100s of points

I want to run 2 servos witch have step-dir 4 inputs 4 outputs.
The manual of servos have some circuit shematics in the first pages about inputs-outputs.
PCW please can you see the circuit and say me witch daughter card will work with these servos ?

(servo manual) www.sendspace.com/file/yh312e