Advanced Search

Good day,
Adding a voice here as I think I saw another user having this issue: RPI5 with a 7i96, and after some time I get a solid red INIT light on the mesa card, and obviously at that point have to reset the card to continue. I cant make heads or tails of this just yet, but it might be related to idle. It may be specific to the 7i96 given the other poster also commented on that. I have 7i76EU on its way so will be able to test this and post back whether I experience anything similar. Currently the Mesa is on a 5v3A wall plug, and the RPI5 uses a somewhat official USBC RPI wall plug.

I need hardware suggestions.  There seems to be a gap in my knowledge, and in my research.

I just got a new CNC router, and it came with a Grbl-based controller.  I always used LinuxCNC in the past on my DIY machine, and I can already tell that I'll probably be happier if I switch to LinuxCNC on the new one.

The most recent incarnation of the old machine was driven by a Raspberry Pi and a Mesa ethernet card.  The Mesa was connected almost directly to the limit and estop switches, and the step/dir lines went to a quad stepper driver board I got from Sparkfun a long long time ago.  The wiring was a horrible rat's nest of jumpers running between pin connectors glued upside down to a plank.  (I'm not exaggerating.) And I don't want to use the Sparkfun board again, for various reasons.

At some point I'm going to want to use the Mesa card with the new machine.  But what I'm picturing, that I don't have, is the "interface" board.  It needs to take 24V power, and have 3 or 4 of those little 16 bit stepper driver modules.  And it needs to have a bunch of screw terminal strips, set up to logically simplify the 6 or 7 pairs going to switches, the 3 or 4 connections to the motors, and all of the interconnect to the Mesa.  Basically what I want is an XYZ CNC router breakout board, with drivers.

But all I can find is complete controllers:  all of what I described, hardwired to an ATMega328, or ESP32.  Or, all of what I described, in the form of an Arduino hat.  Better, but still not very Mesa-friendly.

Can anyone point to the product I'm looking for?  Or tell me (nicely what I should be looking for instead?