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I have tried several of the other demo software programs available for this purpose and was not
satisfied with their performance, ease of use, or value for the asking price. I thought I could do better writing my own program and took on the challenge. I tried to make the program commands as intuitive as possible, at least to me, and hopefully to others as well. |
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New Version 4 Quickstep with PulsePacer Attachment
If your are running microstep drivers and are looking for really fast and ultra-smooth motion
then Version 4 is what you have been looking for. Quickstep version 4 now ships with a small circuit board that plugs directly into the printer port. The "PulsePacer" board is a custom manufactured circuit that communicates with the Quickstep software and is designed to put out very precise pulse signals. The pulse signal timing is controled by an independent clock signal rather than anything on your computer or Windows operating system. The performance output of this system is way beyond where most people will ever need to go. For example I have a system running XP at 2.4GHz. This system has 2 amp Pacific Scientific motors and a 3 axis Xylotex driver board running 1/8th steps at 18 volts. It has been running motors at 50,000- 80,000 microsteps per second for each axis. Acceleration rates are over 50,000 steps per second for all three axis at the same time. You can make manual moves at these speeds and the position counter is also updating on the display in real time, even while you are moving your mouse around on the screen. This is the kind of high speed performance you normally
don't expect unless you have spent a whole lot more for hardware improvements. The
PulsePacer also has two mosfet drvers so you can connect two of the motor relay outputs directly to a solid state 120-240 VAC relay that accepts 3-32 VDC input signals.
Are you interested yet? I have attached a photo of the PulsePacer hardware below. It ships
with a 3 ft ribbon cable and wall type power supply transformer. The plug on the ribbon cable plugs directly into your printer port and your stepper drivers plug into the DB25 port on the PulsePacer. If you already have everything wired up to the printer port plug, then you are ready to go. The wiring pinout to the plug is exactly the same as earlier versions of Quickstep so all you have to do is plug it in to the PulsePacer. If you are not totally satisfied with the speed or smoothness of this PulsePacer then there is a 60 day money back guarantee. |