Networking two TinyGs

Assuming you asked me:-),

> Can you shoot me a note as to where you are physically located?

Tampere, Finland.

> if you are using fiducials to align what the camera is seeing with the real world of the CNC domain. If so, how do you do it, what fiducials are you using, and how did you fabricate them?

I’m using industry standard fids, a round pad with no soldermask and no hole. On CAD, those are just another SMD component, with position data, manufactured by the PCB maker. At pre-processing, I find these from the pick-and-place file. I have a jig on the table where the board goes, so I know approximately where the board origin is in cnc coordinates. I go look at the fiducials, and regognize them using AForge.NET vision library to get the exact fid positions in cnc units. Then just some math to get board offset, scale and skew, which then give me the true component locations and rotation in cnc units.

Of course, I also need to know the needle point offset from the camera, as a function of rotation. For this, I use another camera, looking up from a hole in the table.

This has nothing to do with networking TinyG’s anymore. We can start another thread or take this off-line. (There are no private messages on this forum?)
My mail is juha <at> kuusama point com.

I have a similar question. I have a setup where i’m currently using all 4axis XYZA(x doubled up) and it works great, but I would like to add one more small stepper like this one: https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10551

It will do sort of an in-between job like cleaning the head, so it does not have to synchronize with the other axis.

What would be the easiest was to implement this with tinyg?

thanks, Peter

Thanks, I already have XXYZA on the M1-M4 drives, so the DUE control could be the way to go for the extra stepper.

Is there any way to use the spindle pins(PWM, sdir, spin) to communicate to a stepper driver -like ‘big easy drive’- and add a 5-axis?

This thread has gotten me thinking on a few reasons to network a TinyG together–not for a pick and place machine–with either another TinyG or some other board. My first thought would be the ability to utilize additional limit inputs (X-, Y-, and Z- min/max switches) without losing any physical limit switch functionality on the machine itself. Consider using it with a 3D touch probe in the G54-G59 coordinate system. Using a similar setup with CP already has for mapping the face of a PCB board with the Z-min limit, but expanding on it to map both the x- and y- limit of the work piece.

Another thought would be the ability to take advantage of additional TinyG outputs such as the coolant trigger: instead of having M7 and M8 function by turning on the same output allow the TinyG to set M7 for one output and M8 for the other. In similar fashion two spindles could be utilized (combined mill/lathe machine maybe?).

Those shouldn’t require synchronization as utilizing the steppers would. Would something like that be possible, or rather I should say: Would something like that produce less programming and new board production requirements than the G2?