MESA 7i80HD+7i33TA+7i47 for gantry robot with 3 brushless + 2 steppers motors

Hello,

I am an associated researcher from the University of A Coruña, in Spain. Our research group has recently acquired a large gantry robot from the Igus company, which we intend to use for research purposes. However, we are missing the software to control the robot.

After some research we think that LinuxCNC + MESA boards may be a perfect solution for our needs. Our robot is a XXYZ gantry robot with 3 brushless motors (2 for the X axis, 1 for the Y axis) and 2 steppers motors (one for the Z axis, another for rotation around the Z axis). The controllers for all motors are Igus drylin D1, and all the motors have RS-422 differential encoder outputs. The brushless motors speeds can be controlled by analog +/-10V input signals. The steppers use step/direction signals, with logic low values between 0V and 0.5V, and high values between 3V and 5V.

We would like to use a MESA board with an Ethernet interface. We are considering the 7i80HD board, with the 7i33TA daughterboard to drive the brushless motors, and the 7i47 daughterboard to drive the stepper motors. For this setup we have seen that there is the firmware SVST8_4_7I33_7I47S.

Some basic questions that I have, just to be sure:

Our stepper motors have single ended inputs (i.e., not differential), according to the 7i47 daughterboard manual I think that for this we could just use one of the sides of the RS-422 outputs, right? If so, logic voltages would be 0V for low and 5V for high, right?

Additionally, in order to use the GPIO of the 7i80HD, I have seem that MESA has the 7I42TA Breakout/FPGA protection card, which seems to be the proper way for adding screw terminals for this board, right?

Do you think this is fine?

Thank you kindly.

I would suggest instead a 7I96S + 7I77
as these are both available now and will
provide the analog servo interface
+ 24 VIO for limit switches etc.

Thanks a lot PCW, I was not aware of those boards, at a first glance they seem indeed a good solution for our case. We were considering the 7i80HD + daughterboards because we are in Europe and those boards are available in the EUSurplus distributor. At EUSurplus the 7I96S + 7I77 are not in stock, however they have the 7i97 in pre-order and the 7i76 in stock, which seem similar to the 7I96S + 7I77. I am going to check carefully all of these boards and discuss it with my boss.

So finally we have decided that we would like to use the 7I96S + 7I77 as you suggested, PCW. However, I see that now there is no stock left of the 7I77 in the MESA store, do you know when they will be available again?

There are a couple in the store now