Making sure I have the appropriate hardware for a SSerial-based machine

Since I've joined the board here I've gone through some forks in the path to a functional machine.

I currently have a J3445-based computer for LinuxCNC, with 8GB of RAM, however it's not optimized and will need to be wiped and re-installed to clean up the mess I made of the install.

I started out with a 7i96+8C20 combination to drive a step+direction machine with a servo-spindle. It worked, moved my little aluminum extrusion machine around, but I never cut anything with it. Sold the 8C20 card off and dissasembled the machine to make room for the bigger steel framed machine.

Built 6 STMBL drives, all of which I have working and ready to run as soon as the heatsink material shows up from Germany. All will be controlled from SmartSerial interfaces.

The planned machine configuration is a vertical mill, with 3 servo-driven axis, servo-drive spindle, toolchanger, and a 4th axis based on a harmonic drive with another servo. This means I'll have a total of 5 STMBL drives connected to the SmartSerial interface.

Then there's the front panel controls, that will be on a 7i73, again, on a SmartSerial interface.

Then there's the field I/O, for limit switches, spindle encoder, and toolchanger.

I've got on hand the following Mesa cards, and I'm counting up field I/O to determine what else I may need:

1 7i94 8 port SmartSerial to Ethernet card
1 7i73 SmartSerial interface for control panel (MPG w/axis select and speed select, Cycle Start/Feed Hold/Cycle Stop/E-Stop)

And I'm looking at a 7i75 DB25-to-I/O card to plug into the 7i94, or a similar DB25 breakout card. This would be used for:

Spindle encoder (2 pins for quadrature data, plus 1 pin for index pulse)
Relay for Drawbar Air Solenoid
Relay for Coolant/on-off
Safety Switch for Drawbar Air Solenoid
Door Interlock for Coolant/Safety (Don't enable coolant if the door isn't closed?)
Air Pressure Safety Switch (Don't allow operation without air pressure)
Coolant Pump Fault/Inhibit (Is the tank dry? Is the pump clogged?)
And room for future tool changer inputs/outputs.

Anyone seeing any gaps/missing info to look out for, before I start designing in the wire routing and limit/home switches?

I'd love some input from Andy-As far as I know he's the only person who is active with the development of both projects.

I'm still working on the heavy steel parts of this build until the heatsinks for the original STMBL V4.3 drives show up, but I just got 4 Mitsubishi HC-KFS73J motors for axis drives, and a 1.8kW chinese servo motor with a 2500 line incremental encoder for the spindle power. I may swap the spindle servo out later for a larger motor, and the machine frame can handle that, but the STMBL drive can't so I'd have to replace that drive in the future. For now, the machine is pretty well ideally sized for a 2.5 to 3HP spindle motor so the 1.8kW servo is not out of line.

That does present a problem.

I had figured I could use some GPIO for the encoder inputs, but I guess if I need too I can hack some STMBL code into a smart-serial based encoder interface. I'm not a great programmer so that's gonna be iffy at best but I could eventually get it done.

My forte is hardware. I'm just not great at the firmware execution.

Today, I got the base plate for the vertical column cut out and as soon as the tap shows up to thread the holes in it, I'll get it welded up and start working on the bracing. There's a lot of welding to do before it goes in the stress relief oven.

That certainly looks like a good start.

I just ordered in some of the MESA DIN rail mounts and found out they do not fit any of the MESA boards I have-they're all too narrow to fit in either direction. I was going to start snapping them onto the rails I screwed to some plywood to start working out the control cabinet layout and the like this week but instead, I drug home 80% of a Handsvelt/Hardinge sinker EDM...it's only missing the machine base and power supply components. (which I can likely build.)

The EDM parts have triggered a mass cleanup of the garage workspace, so not much work has actually been done on the mill this weekend.

Hopefully by Thursday or so, I'll have some STMBL drives, the 7i94, and the field power hooked up to start working on communications and goofing with making a servo spin.

Got a wild hair and designed a new 8 Input, 8 Output board to interface with the Mesa 26 pin expansion connection.

8, 24V inputs compliant with IEC 61121-2 type 3 isolated PLC input standard
8, 24V 500ma-outputs, max output 2.5A at once
LED indicators for the inputs
24V field power connector for (pre) filtered DC field power
Takes +5v from the Mesa 26 pin expansion connector

The isolated inputs are 3-pin pluggable headers with field power, Input, and Ground on each, and the relay-drive outputs are two-pin pluggable headers with a ground and a switched field power, with integral protection diodes for driving inductive loads

I've already got some ideas for upgrades to the card, like dropping 4 of the outputs and fitting a spindle-encoder input that can handle differential signalling for A/B/Z incremental encoders with index, and maybe putting some filtering/regulation on the +24V field power.

PCB's got delivered today, and I'm just waiting on the Digikey order to be able to put one together.
.

You might consider a daughtercard using the inmux firmware to use fewer
pins on the inputs and add digital filtering and MPG encoders to the inputs.
Inmux uses external multiplexors (say 74HCT251) to expand the inputs.
16 inputs would take just 5 pins so you could have 8 outputs and 16 inputs
plus an encoder.

Another advantage is that the inmux module renumbers the inputs so they
are not tied to GPIO numbers