do I need Opto isolators for General Mechatronics?

[quote="toolmaker69" post=65782The velocity loop goes back to the drive, bypassing linuxcnc. As in the Mazak link above, I would try to fit encoders between the motors and the tachometers, and feed the encoders back to linuxcnc.[/quote]

You already have encoders. Each motor has a combined tachometer/encoder. Tachometer for the drive, encoder for LinuxCNC.

So now I'm back looking at Mesa 5I20, with I don't know which daughter cards. Or perhaps still the GM card, using voltage output.

The 5i20 might be overkill. The 5i25/7i77 combo is popular and has what I think is needed. (5i25 for a PCI slot, 6i25 for PCIe)

The motherboard you have features a parallel port, so the Pico PPMC system is also a possibility.

Thanks again.

I'll order the 5I25/7I77 plug and go kit with cable.

toolmaker69 wrote: I'll order the 5I25/7I77 plug and go kit with cable.

Just be aware that apparently Mesa orders are taking a very long time to be processed.

Thanks. I was wondering what was going on.

I ordered and paid first thing yesterday morning, and immediately received an email stating that my order had been received and would be processed as soon as payment is confirmed. The status of "pending" has not changed since. I thought that maybe they had just closed early for the Thanksgiving holiday.

I saw "Webstore orders will be processed within 24-48 hours" and believed it. I just did a search on other forums and discovered that they often have shipping delays to non OEM customers. Hopefully it won't be too bad this time, as they showed the combination that I ordered in stock.

After next week I'll have no work in the shop and have not pursued any, because I wanted to dedicate the shop to building this machine. I guess I can spend the beginning of the time on building a cabinet for the electrics, something I had planned to do once I had everything working.

Thanks for the heads up.

Do you have any idea regarding the length of delays others have been seeing lately?