Difference between revisions of "Channels Channels Channels"

Latest revision as of 12:21, 29 October 2015

Dynomotion loves the term Channels.  It is used everywhere and causes much confusion.  There are Axis Channels, Encoder Channels, ADC Channels, DAC Channels, PWM Driver Channels, and Step/Direction Channels.  A Channel number is simply a way of selecting one of several identical items.

KFLOP's 8 Axis Channels are central to all of this.  Think of each of these as an entity capable of performing some control operation.  All the other channels are devices that Axis Channels may make use of.  Any Axis Channel can use any device.  It is not necessary for example that Axis Channel #6 use Encoder Channel #6.  Although in most cases this would make the most logical sense.

Devices are grouped into Input Devices and Output Devices.  Modes of operation require different numbers of Input and Output Devices.  Input Modes require either 0, 1, or 2 input devices depending on the Input mode.  Output Modes either require either 0, 1, or 2 Output devices depending on the Output mode.  

For example an analogy might be you have 8 persons (Axis Channels), 8 Cars (DACs), and 8 bicycles (Step/Dir Generators).  To accomplish a task like going to the market you might select person #3 to use bicycle #6.  

Note that the Axis Channel Configuration determines which device to use - not directly which I/O (connector) pins to be used.  Devices are often connected to fixed connector pins.  This is because they are basically physical devices and can not be rewired to arbitrary connector pins easily.  So to use certain I/O pins the device channel selected to those pins should be configured not I/O or pin numbers.  It may not be possible to use certain pins in certain modes if no device of the needed type is connected to those pins.  In some cases the devices can be moved (multiplexed) as a block to different I/O Pins.  So although devices can not be moved to any arbitrary pins there are often 2 options to avoid certain conflicts.

This KFLOP Functional Diagram may help