Will Hickory ever support third party I/O?

[carboncymbal]

I am interested in the hickory for an upcoming machine build, and actually standardizing around ethercat capable servo drives for my next acorn build so that I can test hickory when I am ready and if I need to expand the number of axis on the machine. I have an example use case that I find a bit .... frustrating... I suppose. The issue is the limited output types supported by centroid. Currently analog and pwm for spindle control (I have heard ethercat is expected in the future) and soldered relays for digital outputs. Having a background in industrial automation, we generally prefer to eliminate relays for low current applications. 1 amp solid state outputs are common. High switching frequency and greater reliability are among the benefits.

For example, when I look at the ethercat 1616 expansion board, the entire setup is physically large (probably requiring 2-4 times as much panel space as industrial ethercat I/O) and forces the usage of relays. Given ethercat capability, this could easily be replaced with off the shelf industrial IO modules, in an IP20 DIIN rail mountable solution and with greater flexibility (Thermocouple inputs to monitor system temperature for example).

Here is an example where I would prefer to use solid state ougputs instead of relays if possible. I'd like to use position register mode of a delta AC servo drive to provide a high speed servo driven ATC carousel. Since I can't address the drive parameters directly as far as I know with centroid using some fieldbus (ethercat or modbus TCP), I could provide bits to the digital I/O. While this can be done with relays, it seems a less reliable solution with a bunch of needless hardware in the loop.

Are there any plans to support third party ethercat I/O in the future? Also, am I possibly missing the availability of other types of add-on cards for hickory that have been released?

[spikee]

I have used beckhoff ETHERCAT IO with LCNC before and that works quite well. Can find them used almost everywhere and they are very compact and affordable *used*.

A full setup, like in this picture is about 150-200 USD used.

As for the carroussel, In my build I just use ethercat delta servo. In your M6 toolchange code you can make it move like any axis. To a specific position, or keep it moving till you trigger and io etc. As this is just g-code it is easy to modify. Perhaps that solves your concerns relating to that?

[cnckeith]

its possible, but right now we are not working on it.
first step would be to identify a couple of good units and get a few in for evaluation to see what is possible.
keep in mind third party support for any component adds complexity and support issues (whos fault is it?? ) and we always end up having to provide support for it since who ever built it will blame the control... so this costs us money for an item that we did not make a dime off of and that makes it hard to keep the lights on.

[spikee]

I would not perse be against that one has to pay like 20 bucks or whatever to get access to the (limited) beckhoff ethercat lib.
Beckhoff stuff are the most used ones in the LCNC community:
http://wiki.linuxcnc.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?EtherCatDriver

Perhaps can just build on top of the development already done there?