Re: Firewire/JK's post on compatibility

[jmkasunich-at-ra.rockwell.com]

David Volosky wrote:

> I off-loaded a white paper from the Delta Tau site ~ a year ago.
> It indicated that they ( a company making PC based motion
> solutions ) were heading toward a Firewire connection to a
> dedicated motion control.

For "a company making PC based motion solutions", Firewire might
well be the right solution.  After all, as a commercial operation,
selling "dedicated motion control" is how they make their money.

Just out of curiosity, what does one of their systems sell for?
Over $1,000 per axis certainly.  Over $10,000 wouldn't surprise
me.

> It seems to me that they were thinking of the future and just
> had a little jump, over this group, on this issue.

I think maybe part of the disagreement is because this group
represents widely different interests.  What is appropriate
for a large corporation to sell with their $100K machining
center is totally inappropriate for my hopefully sub-$1000
CNC upgrade to my $1500 Shoptask machine. <grin>

I like EMC because it is open and inexpensive, things that
appeal to the tinkerer in me.  SERCOS, Firewire, etc, are
"open" only to those with large development budgets, or a
lot of free time to study.

I think of this group as being composed of "tinkerers" like
me, and of dedicated software developers who are writing for
the open source community.  My comments were based on that
perception.

Perhaps my reactionary attitudes are based on frustration.
All around me, I see systems rapidly growing so complex that
there is no longer anything a "tinkerer" can do.

John Kasunich