Gerber D-200

I am beginning a conversion of a Gerber Scientific Dimension 200 (D-200).
It is a small (about 3ft square) table top router. It's controller is Gerber's "Arc Station" and an electrical box with the power supply and driver(s) runs off of Gerber's horrible yet very expensive ArtPath software.

The Arc-Station is connected to the driver board by a DB-37 parallel cable. I've done a little poking with a multi-meter and as best I can see the Arc-Station is sending 4 24v step signals for each step motor. One signal to each of 4 transistors on the driver board. (I suspect it is uni-polar1/2 stepping the 6 wire step-motors).

There are also 6 other 24v outputs but I have not traced down exactly what they all are or if they are all used.

I can not tell if there are any inputs carried through the 37 pin cable (but there might be a few).

The limit switches are wired separately to another plug on the Arc-station.

My number one question is, does anyone have a suggestion of a good board that could handle stepping those 24v signals to control the step motors? I'll need at least 12 (and maybe as many as 18) 24v outputs appropriate for software stepping.

(Please don't reply with just gut the old driver board and put in normal stepper drives. I would like to retain the option of plugging in and using the old control.)

Any of the Mesa cards will support 24 volts. the 7i76 or ethernet 7i76e have 32 inputs and 16 outputs for example.

I thought that the stepper outputs on a 7i76 were only 5v. And the smart serial isolated io can only be serviced by the servo thread, so aren't suitable for step generation. I will have to look into it.

Initially I wasn't really looking at Mesa cards because software stepping should be plenty good enough for this machine.

Mesa step/dir interface cared are 5V only.

You would likely need to use a level translator of some kind
Since the drive is probably unipolar, a parallel port interface is not going to impact performance much if at all.
The level shifter might be as simple a a set of OPTO isolators if simple sinking or sourcing drivers will do.

Andy might chime in. He had a very cheap 8 input level converter he's used a few times that he mentioned in a few posts.

Hi Todd

I have some extra boards if you can use these. I made this to convert 24VDC to 3.3VDC but you can just change resistor values to your need. Optos are PC847 so you have to verify if these are fast/good enough for you, maybe pin compatible can be found to replace.





If you want one just let me know and it will be mailed to you.

Cheers
Bengt

Anyone have any experience with these boards?
cnc4pc.com/Tech_Docs/C80R1_USER%20MANUAL_VER1.pdf

(The C79 and C80 are supposed to be the successors to the C31, which I was considering using.)

I've always had good luck with CNC4PC's C10 boards in the past, but I have to agree that manual is awful, looks like it was typed up by a 3rd grader (or my mom), no proof reading what so ever, lots of obvious mistakes.

If that manual is any indication of the quality of their new products, they might be best avoided. (I hope that isn't the case.)