Originally Posted by
datac
Graham,
If you wanted to try Mach on your currently Flashcut driven machine, it does come down to a simple cable, breakout board or configurable pin db25 adapter.
Essentially, your Flashcut signal generator has a db25 pin connector on the back. Out of this plug (among other things on newer versions), are the signals that tell the motor drivers what to do. The most basic explanation of the magic behind a system like this, is simple. There are pulses that go out of the STEP pins to tell the motors how far and how fast to turn, and there is a plus or minus signal that leaves the DIR pins to tell the motors which direction it should be turning. Each axis has a STEP, DIR and a common ground.
Mach has the same scenario and even uses the same style plug. They just use different pins on that plug.
For example, FC uses pin 9 for axis 1 DIR, and pin 13 for axis 1 STEP. Mach uses a different set of pins, so you have to sit down with a piece of paper and draw a map of what pins going into your driver box need what pins coming out of your parallel port directly on the PC. You do not use the Flashcut box or software at all with new cable or adapter in place. And, you could make it all run with the demo of Mach,,, it will cut 500 lines of code for free they tell me.
If you do it right, you could actually swap back and forth between the two programs just by swapping cables.
If you were to do this, I would hope you would come back and tell us your experiences. If you dont have a more recent version of FC, Mach might impress you with features that are newer than your FC version has. I have swapped two Mach installations to Flashcut. You can not find a more ergonomic, easy to train users, robust control to date. I couldn't imagine not using FC unless I was really down and out and could not afford it.