I am working on a setup from 2008 with a 6 axis USB motion controller and 4 vsd-e drives very similar to the setup shown here.
The motion controller board is exactly the same as in the first post of these two threads, it also says "USB-SPI 6 axis Rev 0" on the PCB:
I have installed GDtool and SimpleMotion library. When trying to connect to the device with GDtool, the first step produces the following output in the event log:
USB mode configured.
Enabling configure mode.
Shell command: OPEN NORMAL
Running OPEN...
Normal mode enabled
>
Got input from SPI shell
Saatiin viesti: 0
Parametreja: 2
0
USB mode configured.
isBootloaderMode
The second step fails with the message "Connection failed. Please check connections." and the following output in the event log:
Configuring connection
Shell command: OPEN
Running OPEN...
cDevice::sendCommandOnly( 2, 0 )
0x200008a -> 0x0
cDevice::sendCommandOnly( 2, 0 )
0x200008a -> 0x0
cDevice::sendCommandOnly( 2, 0 )
0x200008a -> 0x0
Connection failed.
>
Got input from SPI shell
Saatiin viesti: 0
0
Parametreja: 3
0
setConnectionStatus
connected
Connection failed
0
setConnectionStatus
connected
Connection failed
I played around with the example program "SimpleMotionTest" and "FT_Prog" by FTDI to manipulate the USB-controllers Product Description string. The best I could do with SimpleMotionTest was "Communication error. Possibly drive not in SPI mode."
It seems that the axis names are given by the USB Product Description string, because if axis name in SimpleMotionTest and the descriptor string do not match, it says "USB device with given axis not found." This makes sense with the Granite Devices tuning cables but not with a 6 axis controller which can only have one Product Descriptor string.
Is it possible to configure the USB6AX with GDtool? Is it possible to control it with the SimpleMotion library? If yes what am I doing wrong and if no what is the suitable configuration utility and how can I interface the controller with my LabView/C++/... application?
If anyone is out there who still uses the same controller thanks you for sharing you experiences!
