Currently designing a BOB - Would you be interested?

[biketrialsdave]

Hi all,

After getting frustrated with cheap BOBs, I decided to design my own (EE by profession - maybe I shouldn't mention that ) and I am currently a good way into the design. A couple of people have expressed an interest in buying one if I were to make a couple of boards. I am just gauging interest here as it will affect a few of the design decisions I'm making. As anyone who has done small scale production like this before, it's not cheap. To make it financially viable and worth the hassle I would have to be looking at a sale price of ~£140. I appreciate this is a lot of money so it might not appeal to many. Either way, the boards will be made as I need one for myself so no loss!

Rough feature spec below:

• Housed in a plastic DIN rail mount enclosure
• Designed for easy connection to Smoothstepper but will also work with parallel ports with IDC-> DB25 cable
• 15-75Vdc Input Voltage Range. (Actually its 95Vdc or 65Vac Max - theres an internal rectifier. However this would be an unofficial maximum as I want this to fall outside LVD)
• Isolated, regulated 5Vdc output (to power Smoothstepper etc.)
• Non-isolated, regulated 12Vdc output for sensors etc.
• Non-isolated, regulated 5Vdc output for touch probes etc.
• Port 1 & Port 2 support.
• All inputs support Volt free contacts (switches etc.) as well as open collector/drain sensors (NPN etc.). No external pull-ups required.
• PNP sensors are supported so long as they are 24V
• All inputs have LED indication when active

Port 1:

• 10x Inputs
• 4x Step/Dir Outputs
• 1x Spindle Speed Controller Output (Fixed 10V output - internal ref) with calibration POT
• 2x 230Vac/10A Relay Outputs (with LED indicators)
• Charge pump feature allows Mach3 charge pump signal to be input to the BOB. Loss of this signal disables all outputs on the BOB (also turns on a fault LED). This feature can be disabled via a DIP switch.
• If using the dedicated E-STOP input, this can also disable all outputs on the BOB. Again, this function can be disabled via a DIP switch.
• All outputs are buffered

Port 2:

• 4x Buffered Outputs (On an IDC header, unlike terminal blocks used for other I/O)
• 5x Inputs
• 2 of the inputs have a "merge" capability which is useful for Probes etc. This allows a normally closed and normally open contact to be merged together to drive a single input. This can be disabled via a DIP switch.
• Pins #2-9 brought out to IDC header. These are protected but have no buffering.

Cheers,

Dave

[Ger21]

What about one of these? http://www.cncroom.com/break-out-board/smooth-stepper
Already does a lot of what you want.

[JAZZCNC]

Why re-invent an expensive wheel.?

[routercnc]

i haven't compared the specs directly but for not a huge amount more you could have the CSMIO which also comes with direct pulse control and Ethernet unless I'm missing something.

[John S]

i haven't compared the specs directly but for not a huge amount more you could have the CSMIO which also comes with direct pulse control and Ethernet unless I'm missing something.

£400 plus ? ?

[routercnc]

I was thinking of the CSMIO/IP-M at 229 EU (£198)

http://www.cs-lab.eu/en/produkt-18,2...onnectors.html

I might not be comparing like for like so here is the overview (last column):