Inputs needed

Need thoughts on inputs.


I am putting together my controller and I am at the point of the inputs.
I would like to wire in everything I may need now then later.
I have five with the BOB that I am using for now.
I am asking what is needed for a DIY mill and plasma. How can I best use them.

Mill inputs
1-Emerg. stop
2-home/limit switches or ->just home and use 3 for limits.
3-limit switches
4-touch off
5-?

Plasma inputs
1-Emerg. stop
2-home/limit switches
THC
3-ARK-OK
4-torch up
5-torch down
need a touch off here, maybe fore go the home/limit switches or can this be implemented with the home/limit input.

Just looking for a list of commonly used.
For the people that has been down this road, How would you do it.

Thanks

Hey Andy

Yes I know. I didn't want to go this way, But I already dropped some coins on this BOB that I have because I could not get the hardware that I originality ordered.
So It is what it is.

The servo motors appear to work very well with the BOB that I have(step/Dir.) We'll see when I get this together.

Just like to get the most out of what I have for now. When I get this together and I feel that it is worthy of better hardware I may revisit that.

For a beginner in this, It is a bit of a brain bender on how to best integrate and wire all of this with so little.

You don't have to limit yourself to only one parallel port. You can have 2 or 3 (or more). Plus they can be configured as out (with 12 out and 5 in), In (with 4 out and 13 in), or x-mode (with 8 out and 9 in.) However I don't think you'll ever find an off the shelf breakout board compatible with x-mode. I have a machine set up using 3 ports. (not necessarily because I needed all the I/O, but more for the convenience of attaching existing hardware. (I probably could have made it work on only one port with a bit of rewiring.)

So if you need more inputs add a second parallel port configured as "in" for 13 more input pins.