Plcm-e4

[JAZZCNC]

I realise this is a bit of a ramble, but I'm rather confused at the moment, trying to decide what to get. Cost is a bit of a concern, and I wouldn't want to spend as much on a bob as I do on the motion controller as it seems like some people do.

Any tips?

Don't short cut the BOB esp with a Motion control card. BOB's are the single biggest bottleneck and pain in the arse if poor quality.

I'd enquire about the E4 but got a feeling it's still in R&D.

The B1 is just a BOB but it's designed to take full advantage of the E3 and allows full use of all the I/O. It's essentially 2 Bob's in one with PWM spindle control.
If you don't need all the I/O the E3 provides then you can get away with just using the PLC6x or the PLC4x-G2. The G2 provides PWM spindle control the 6x doesn't.

If your going for the ESS then I'd strongly suggest you go for the PMDX126.

[Neale]

I was getting a bit confused about this as well, when I was looking at the Zapp site earlier (and especially as I haven't found decent English documentation for these devices). Thanks for the additional info.
One more question, though - when these boards talk about PWM spindle speed control, I am assuming that they have some kind of PWM->true analogue converter on board, which takes a PWM speed signal from Mach3 and gives a 0-10V (usually) signal that connects directly to the VFD. Is that right? Nothing else needed for Mach3 spindle speed control?

- Brian

[JAZZCNC]

Nothing else needed for Mach3 spindle speed control?

Yep that's correct just set mach3 to output PWM and away you go.!