Recent Product Announcements
On
December 16, 2009 we released our new BS1010
product line. This board is the next generation of our
popular BS0710 product line, and
adds extra I/O ports, analog input, flash memory and other
features to that system.
WHQL Approved USB drivers are now available! On December 7, 2009, we released our WHQL approved version of the FTDI USB drivers for our boards. This release supports pre-installation of the drivers: you run the installer once, and from then on the operating system will automatically connect to our boards as needed.
On July 6, 2009 we released our updated BC4E15 product line. The new board now has ESD protection, as well as optional support of being partially powered from the USB connection (please note that stepper motors cannot be powered from USB, due to current limitations).
On June 20, 2009 we released our updated USBToTTL converter boards. Both now have ESD protection, while one (the USBToTTLEU) now supports providing a 5 volt tap from the USB bus (which automatically shuts off if the computer goes to sleep).
We also released our updated UCC30xx series of current regulated dual axis unipolar controller boards. The new versions are USB based, have ESD protection, and support optional powering of the logic portion of the board off of the USB system.
On
June 5, 2009 we released our new SD4DGenIO firmware, which supports generic TTL I/O, encoder
operation, and pulse generation using the
SD4D series of boards.
On
May 29, 2009 we released our two upgrades to the
SD4D series of step-and-direction
controller boards. The SD4DEI
adds ESD protection and digital isolation, while the
SD4DEU adds ESD protection and
optional powering via the USB system.
On
March 10, 2009 we updated our StepperBoard class libraries (both the
Active-X and the .Net versions) to automatically keep the computer
from entering sleep as long as I/O is active to any of our stepper
controller products.
On
February 20, 2009 we released our
SimplexCNC application from beta testing. It is now
considered to be a fully released and supported product offering.
SimplexCNC allows operation of small
routers using a specialized firmware installed on our
SD4DP four-motor step-and-direction controller.
In August of 2008, we released an updated version of our popular BS0710USB board
(the BS0710USBHI) which adds ESD protection to most of the TTL I/O lines, and
which isolates the USB system from the rest of the board. We also
released an updated version of our
SD4DP four-motor step-and-direction controller,
which adds ESD protection to the TTL I/O lines.
February 15, 2008: Our new beta offering of the
SimplexCNC application allows operation of small
routers using a specialized firmware installed on our
SD4DP four-motor step-and-direction controller.
November
1, 2007: We have released our SS0710USB
upgrade to our SS0705USB dual unipolar motor controller product. The
SS0710USB doubles the current rating of the board to 1 amp/winding per motor, so
more powerful motors may be used. Please
click here for more information.
October 19, 2007 (updated 29 October): We have released a preliminary beta version of our StepperBoard class library, rewritten completely using Microsoft Visual C# for the .NET 2.0 (and later) environments. Please click here for more information.
July 23, 2007: We have released our NCStepper4D firmware for the SS4D series of four motor controllers. This firmware provides for synchronous operation of up to four motors from one board.
May
15, 2007: We have released our SS4Dxx USB four
motor unipolar controller. This extends our SSxx product line to include
operation of up to four motors from one board.
May
15, 2007: We have released our SD4DP USB high
performance step-and-direction board! This extends our SD4D product line
to include on-board dual 8-bit DACS, and a higher motor stepping rate.
March 24, 2007: An important update to our StepperBoard class library has been released this weekend which addresses an issue with accessing COM ports above port number 9. Please read this FAQ for more information about this update.
Microsoft Vista notes, as of March 21, 2007. As a quick summary: We now support Microsoft Vista for our products.
On August 12, 2006 we released multiple new USB based products, and announced the availability of ROHS compliance as a special-order option on some of our boards. We now offer USB and ROHS versions of the SS0705, SS0905, BC2D15, as well as a new USB replacement product for the BC4D15, the BC4E15USB. Please contact us for more information: we expect be updating our web pages and price lists later this week.
We also have released an enhanced version of the SD4D-USB board, which includes the on-board drivers needed for direct compatibility with the Gecko series of motor drivers.
On April 4, 2006 we released two new board products. Our SD4D controller allows for operation of up to 4 motors by generating step-and-direction signals which are accepted by external products (such as the Gecko series of controllers). Our BS0710 USB board is an extension of our popular BS0610/BiStepA06 dual axis controllers, now with on-board USB communications! More information on the BS0710 USB is available here, more information on the SD4D controller will be presented later this week..
On March 31, 2006, we released a major update to our StepperBoard class library as a free software system for control of all of our boards. The system includes a comprehensive manual describing the entire class library system. Click here for more information about this release.
On January 8, 2006 we issued a USBToTTL Board Users Alert! Do NOT install the updated FTDI drivers which are available from Windows Update! More information is available here...
On December 7, 2005, we released an update to our SerRoute serial routing firmware. This update adds TTL pulse width measurements and rotary positional encoder processing on up to 8 phase encoders. Click here for information about this firmware.
On October 5, 2005, we released StepperBoard class library. This update includes support for the BC4D15 version of NCStepper, and also includes a new comprehensive manual describing the entire class library system. Click here for more information about this release...
On September 19, 2005, we released our NCStepper firmware for the BC4D15 product line. This firmware allows control of 4 stepper motors in a 'linked' fashion, as is appropriate for Numerically Controlled operations. Please click here for more information....
On
June 1, 2005, we released our RS422ToTTL
serial buffer board. This product is designed to allow for longer-distance
communications between our devices. Please click here for more
information....
On May 31, 2005, we released our NCStepper firmware for the BC2D15 product line. This firmware allows control of 2 stepper motors in a 'linked' fashion, as is appropriate for Numerically Controlled operations. Please click here for more information....
On March 31, 2005, we released the following alert:
(Completed) Product Recall Alert! If you have a BiStepA04, BiStepA06 or a BiStep2A board from us which has the firmware labeled as "GenStepper Vers. 2.1", please read this page. You may need to download updated documentation for your product.
On February 16, 2005, we introduced our first 4-motor controller, the
BC4D15. Based on the same concept as our
BC2D15, this current regulating unit can operate
up to four bipolar motors, at peak currents of up to 1.5 amps/winding. For
more information about this new offering, please click here.
As part of this introduction, we also are now offering our new
RS232ToTTL serial conversion board, which
allows any TTL-Serial device to use RS232 communications.
On January 30, 2005, we updated our new beta StepperBoardStatic Windows communication support library to include Active-X functionality. This library of sources is intended to help the Microsoft Windows programmer "talk" to any of our our motion control products. Please click here for more information about this free beta offering.
On November 8, 2004, we added the BC2D15PotRouter firmware as a new option for the BC2D15 motor controller. This firmware permits you to "daisy-chain" boards together, so that one serial line can communicate with multiple controllers.
On
October 27, 2004, we introduced our USBToTTL
Serial converter. This product adds USB connectivity to all of our motor
controller boards. Please click here
for more information about this tiny 1" x 1.5" device.
On September 17, 2004, we introduced
our newest dual-motor controller, the BC2D15. This current-regulating unit
can operate one or two bipolar stepper motors, at peak currents of up to 1.5
amps/winding. For more information about this new offering, please
click here. Note that on November 8, 2004,
we added a new BC2D15PotRouter firmware
option for this board, which allows "daisy chaining" boards together in order to
operate more than 2 motors off of one serial line.