Rutex system uncontrollable after computer replacement.

Hello all,

I recently replaced the computer which I had been using to control my 3 axis router which uses Rutex R2010 drives and an R2120 opt-isolated motherboard. Prior to replacing the computer which would no longer boot up the system had been working correctly. After the new computer was hooked up I tried to jog one axis in mach 3 and all axes started to oscillate erratically. I have witnessed this behavior before but found the cause to be a bad connection between the motherboard and the drives due to physical tension created by the power and encoder cables pulling in the drives. At the time removing the motherboard/drives and heat sink as an assembly and putting it on the floor to alleviate the stress resolved the issue.

I am satisfied that stresses caused by the cable is not the cause of the problem in this case as I removed the drive assembly and put it on the floor so there was no pulling of the wires. I decided to check the drives using the tuning software and with one drive connected to the motherboard and no encoder/power wires the red light flashes about 4 times per second as it should when everything is in working order but the tuning software cannot see the drive. I'm using windows 7 and the software is intended only for XP/2000 but I doubt that has any impact on this (anyone able to confirm this?). When I plug in the power connector and the encoder connector the flashing light stays on constantly indicating a problem although I'm very confident there are no polarity issues or anything of that nature. The tuning software still cannot see the drive.

I tried a second computer with no change in the results and I'm confident the printer cable (all cables for that matter) running between the computer and the motherboard is in good working order.

Anyone have any suggestions on how to trouble shoot this?

Thanks
Splint

Have you tried the drives with a tuning cable directly from the parallel port, bypassing the break out board?

Thanks HCE,

After bypassing the motherboard and not seeing any improvement I thought I'd grab an old hard drive and install a Windows XP on it. Problem solved.It seems Rutex doesn't like Windows 7. I've only got to the stage of tuning a single drive at this stage but I fully expect everything to work as it should when I get the other drives hooked up and running with Mach.

Cheers
Splint