Ok first off, how is everyone doing?  I have a control box that has a C32 board with a  ESS Smooth Stepper attached.  Attached to the ESS Smooth Stepper is a  C52 board to give me more I/O, adds a 3rd printer port.  My QUESTION is can I hook an Automation Direct Click PLC to the C52 board?  I am trying to understand how I can use a PLC to run an ATC Tool Changer and my Power Draw Bar.  I am pretty sure the PLC can handle the Auto Tool Change function but the problem is how would I incorporate the PLC into my C52 Board?

I have looked at the documentation for the C52 board  http://cnc4pc.com/Tech_Docs/C52_R1_3_USER_MANUAL.pdf  but I  don't know how to get the PLC to run through the C52 board.  If anyone has any knowledge or can understand it better than I please let me know.  By the way i have all the components for the ATC, air valves, carousel air cylinder, fabco pancake air cylinder for PDB, and all the limit switches.  What I don't have is the ATC put together yet, still need to machine parts to do so.  I am just wanting to get the electronics out of the way first.

Jeff

The c52 board gives you digital outputs, the plc has digital inputs. So if you got the correct plc the connections are simple. A signal back to mach 3 is a digital output to a digital input on the c52. The real question is how many tools you want have. You can code tool numbers as binary.  Four inputs to the plc and read as binary can give you fifteen tool positions. Similarly you could use 4 switches to identify which of 15 tools are in position. Hope this helps.

Yes the C52 board can take in inputs or outputs.  So I guess the limit switches will then hook up to the PLC?  I am fuzzy on how the limit switches will be read.  I would like the M6start to have the PLC call so the PLC will do the whole function.  My tool carousel will have 14 tools, if that does not work then 12 tools for the carousel.

While you can certainly do a tool changer with a PLC Mach3 is quite capable of handling the chore of a tool changer by itself and it is a WHOLE lot less complicated to do.

Just a thought, (;-) TP

I Agree that Mach 3 can handle an auto tool change just fine, and much simpler than having it go through a PLC.