Mesa equipment

Hello JT
Ok I understand, that's fair enough, but maybe you then should have a line or two about that on your website, maybe under where it say: Contact me?

So I sent you a couple of questions, because I'm a noob when it comes to CNC and RPI4b/Mesa cards, but I like the idea of making a setup with a small footprint. This is what I asked when I contacted Mesaus:

Hello
I’m looking at setting up a Raspberry pi 4b with 3-axis LinuxCNC and a Mesa card, but there are so many cards to choose from so I get confused, haha.

I would like a compact setup so I’ve been looking at your 7c80/7c81 card, but I guess I would need another breakout card for my stepper drivers(DM556 or similar) and for my peri pals like bit-setter, touch probe and end stops. I may also use a G540 driver card if it’s very much more easy to set up, but it will be much more costly so I would prefer to start with 3 separate drivers.

What would be your recommended mesa cards for a complete setup including breakout.

Regards
Terje Moe

Thank you

tommylight wrote:

But
They both provide the best tech support on earth, right here on thins forum!
 

So I guess the support wasn’t that good, luckily I haven’t bought any Mesa equipment. 

Take care 
Terje

Temo wrote:

So I sent you a couple of questions, because I'm a noob when it comes to CNC and RPI4b/Mesa cards, but I like the idea of making a setup with a small footprint. This is what I asked when I contacted Mesaus:

Hello
I’m looking at setting up a Raspberry pi 4b with 3-axis LinuxCNC and a Mesa card, but there are so many cards to choose from so I get confused, haha.

I would like a compact setup so I’ve been looking at your 7c80/7c81 card, but I guess I would need another breakout card for my stepper drivers(DM556 or similar) and for my peri pals like bit-setter, touch probe and end stops. I may also use a G540 driver card if it’s very much more easy to set up, but it will be much more costly so I would prefer to start with 3 separate drivers.

Linuxcnc can feel overwhelming and frustrating, especially when starting out. So lets tone it down a bit, and read some of the board descriptions.

"7C80 RPI interfaced Step&dir plus I/O interface"
Like the name suggests, it is an RPI interface card with stepper and IO breakout. No extra breakout cards needed to connect your 3 drivers to but the card it not small. the size of card is 8inchs by 4 inches

"7C81 RPI FPGA board" "Three 26 pin header connectors with standard parallel port pinouts and 5V tolerant I/O are provided for compatibility with most parallel port interfaced motion control / CNC breakout cards/ multi axis step motor drives, including Mesa's 25 pin daughtercards. "

This card is similar to the 7c80 but but like the description says, it would need additional breakout boards to connect IO and steppers. This board accepts standard 25pin breakout boards like the chinese bob or the ones supplies from mesa like the 7i76. This board has an overall smaller footprint than the 7c80, with a size of around 4in x 4in.

There are pretty good descriptions on the mesa site. Its really up to you as the person doing the build and creating the integration/controller hmi to do a read up and get what you need. 

Thank you very much, much appreciated. A 4x4 size would be perfect for me.

Just a quick question, would the combined setup of 7c81 and 7i76 be more responsive towards working with the rpi4 than using the bigger 7i76e as I understand is a all in one card that connects to the ripi via Ethernet?

Terje

Temo wrote:

Thank you very much, much appreciated. A 4x4 size would be perfect for me.

Just a quick question, would the combined setup of 7c81 and 7i76 be more responsive towards working with the rpi4 than using the bigger 7i76e as I understand is a all in one card that connects to the ripi via Ethernet?

Terje

I have read through this post a few times and surprised that anybody has answered you.

Now to help you you mention a 4x4 machine with 3 axis But how can any body give you give you info on cards unless you give more info like is it a plasma or a router with a spindle control or some other machine do you need mpg's external buttons etc etc.

fora a plasma the mesa 7i96s would be a good choice.