7I33TA Just plug it in?

retrofitting a mazak vtc-20b and it is going great, i have step and dir to all the servo drives. that is running off a 7i52s in first connecter P4, i have a 7i44 on p2, i would like to run a 7i33ta in the middle for the analog spindle. can i just plug it in or do i need a new firmware for the 5i24-24?
also seem like a lot to use a whole 7i33ta just for the spindle, maybe i could use pwm and dir with the gs2015 spindle drive?

If you spindle drive can use 5V PWM/DIR control
(and you are not using all 6 step/dir outputs on the 7I52S)
it might be easiest to use firmware that changes one of the 6
step/dir outputs on the 7I52S to PWM/DIR

the manual says it has 1 channel pulse input (33 kHz), 1 channel pulse output (33 kHz), not sure what this is maybe like stepper pulse in. im using 4 channels of the 7i52s for XYZA axis, the A is available for the spindle. still having trouble turning all the step gens on. i got it working before and i followed the forum posts that worked before but i think im doing something wrong. the machine has a spindle encoder, but the manual unclear on how to implement the pulse input. think it would be 1 cw pin, 1 ccw pin, pulse pin (step?) and some kind of enable(run) pin. have a 7i82d that i could put the pins on and use encoder and step(pulse) or pwm out on the 7i52s

looks like it is a 24v pulse in so maybe a npn transistor. i did get the step gens 0 and 3 working. think the easiest way is to put the 7i33ta on the 5i24
and just set it up with analog out to gs20. i have 2 7i82d so io is not a problem.

what do you guys think?

For a 24V pulse, I would use an OPTO, both for voltage translation and isolation.
Using a 7I33 likely needs custom firmware as I don't think there's standard firmware
for a 7I52S+7I33 ( not a big deal but If the drive can take a frequency input, an OPTO
would have the advantage of full isolation)

i cant get the pulse to go though the OPTO, least not the cheap ones. thinking the pulse time is to fast sure there is a way to turn that but it is cold out there right now, the manual shows a npn/pnp switch, freeding a opto.     

Did you try step_type 2?
This is quadrature mode and has square wave output.
(if the stepgen scale  is set to 1, the output frequence is directly
settable in Hz)

Also with OPTOs you need to limit the input LED current
to the minimum required to get the quickest turn off,
maximum frequency.
 

so i need a resistor, it is an amazon cheapo that i had around. i have some Darlington and transistors around here to. may pull the opto off the board and have a look

ok how do i write a driver for 5i24-25 with 7i52s, 7i33ta, 7i44. 

i kinda want to know how that works. its an fpga right 
 

You need 5I24-25 firmware for a 7I52S_7I33+7I44: