LS iX7 Series Drives - Can these be added to the device list?

Rod,

LS iX7 drives use the 402 protocol and are quite nice to work with. Now that AutomationDirect is supplying them there is a good supply chain with excellent support.

www.automationdirect.com/adc/shopping/ca...cables/ix7nha004u-ad

I reviewed the esi/xml file and it is pretty straightforward stuff as far as I can tell. 

If they cannot be added to the device list how hard would it be to integrate them?

Any help is always appreciated and your opinion is valuable. 

Thanks

Don

Hey, Don, thats not my department. ScottLaird is the guru maintaining the Linuxcnc Ethercat driver.
It is possible that support exists because he has developed a cia402 driver already. Here it is on his repo.
github.com/linuxcnc-ethercat/linuxcnc-et...umentation/cia402.md

Forgot to mention I also  have a homecomp for cia402 devices but its untested. I wanted this to find its way into Scotts repo eventually
github.com/rodw-au/cia402_homecomp

I am a little confused on how to get say an IO module working. Most everything I see details the servo side of things. Also, if using Classic Ladder how to draw in the addresses?

At the end of the day, i think that it is time to start coming out of the stone age using step and direction and parallel port emulation. While far less expensive, it uses way too many BoB's and leaves way too many variables that make troubleshooting and long term support too open ended.

While I am no expert at LCNC, I am a 30 year cnc service and applications engineer with 30+ years on Fanuc as an integrator, as well as Seimens/Heidenhain. The primary focus is always on reliability with maximum cost efficiency. But, with all truly capable cnc controls to get that level of determinism you have pay more than a couple hundred bucks.

I develop industrial solutions and tend to never seek hobby level solutions. Otherwise you end up with something along the lines of Mach4 which has zero standardization and zero ability to have consistent support.

All that said, I would like to find a way to develop a team outside the normal channels to further advance the LCNC system to a more streamlined and almost canned version that allows for integrators to setup a system without weeks of tweaking around the endless versions of this and that. I suppose my idea is to create a standard fully developed LCNC system that provides the specific hardware interfaces and drivers. More or less along the same lines as Fanuc and the rest of the commercial grade products. LCNC is mature enough to handle this. At least from my perspective.

I started down the rabbit hole a year or so ago and gave up because the zero to hero factor is not practical based on the hundreds of iterations on the web. Sure customization is cool, but if as an integrator I install the system in a custom manner my client will only be able to use 1 source for support. That fails the smell test. I suspect that is the reason LCNC has never made it past the 98% hobby level system.

Thanks for the info and I look forward to chatting more. And listening to your humble advice in regards to my above statements. I think ProbeBasic was a solid start down the path of standards on the GUI side. Now a standard for a hardware setup needs to be created. Maybe even tie them together. Who knows...?