CHEAP I/O board, breakout bd, cash price from ebay seller

[ibewgypsie]

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...sPageName=WDVW

(cartridge heaters are for my extrusion machine to come) He has more of them too.

Has some classic type opto22 modules on board. I bought two of them, I think he said he has 20 more at 15.50 each.

I am using a similar type system to trigger the drives on my cnc (they have terminals on both sides thou). Only drawback to this unit is it uses a card edge connector and must run to a I/O board such as the pamux or PCI/48 boards. Modules are frequently on ebay for as little as .50 each.
Writing information to the board? you select the I/O of the board and poke, or use the out8255.dll driver in windows. Then you read/write to the modules. Typical turn on times are in the 5ms-10ms range for a output. No real communication or brains onboard, just bits to turn on and off.
SOME CNC software locks you into using the Parallel port address.. You'd have to improvise something then, perhaps solder onto the edge or adapt a cable. and lose the upper bits on the board (or use a second port).
It is a 24/bit or position board and a parallel port uses 2 words or 16 bits, 4 bits on one word are also the input pins.

I plan on using one on another application I am working on here (I have three for my use). FAST, with a old 486/ISA slot card you can read a 1200 PPR encoder directly off the modules and not miss a beat. Applications can include pneumatic cylinder positioning w/pulse encoder feedback, or pulse/dir servo-stepper drives.

JUst thought I'd give a heads up for you enterprising robotics enthusiasts on a shoestring budget. (I am just cheap)

David
Sorry to waste all you "normal guys time and space" Just for geeks should be in the title?

[suprdvn]

I was just looking for five of the red output relays (5vdc to turn on 24vdc). It's hard to sift through ebay for these. Now I'll have a spare board and spare input relays.

Thanks for posting.