When I took out the 15 pin connector for NC Studio, I cut the hole larger in the drive box and put in a 37 pin D-Sub breakout for WinCNC.

WinCNC has two cards, both of which has a 37 pin connector. One card is a PCI card that does the connection to the PC for the second card, the daughter card.

The PCI card connector can supply up to 16 inputs and 16 outputs as well as 5v+ and 5v ground.

The daughter card supplys several inputs and outputs too, but it also does step and direction for up to 6 axes. Another great thing about the daughter card is it can be made to allow digital to analog spindle speed control.

Here is a quick once over of the daughter card pin out.

Pins 1 -10 and pins 26 - 29 are inputs. They are for WinCNC to receive TTL signal.

Pins 22 - 25 are outputs. These are used to turn things like a spindle on and off.

Pins 17, 19, 31, 33, 35 and 37 are step pins. Each can be configured in WinCNC to supply step signal to an axis.

Pins 16, 18, 30, 32, 34, and 36 are direction pins. Each can be configured in WinCNC to supply direction signal to an axis.

With the proper hardware added to the daughter card (by WinCNC) and the feature enabled, pins 12 - 14 can be made to control the RPM of the inverter by use of an S# command. 'S18000' would spin the spindle at 18000 RPM.

Now, my wiring, all from the daughtercard...

1. X low limit
2. Y low limit
3. Z high limit
4. My inverter can be set up to output a signal when it reaches the requested RPM. I used that here. I do not allow my machine to move until this input comes on. That way it can not hit the material until it is up to speed.
5. Tool length measure switch
12. Ground signal from inverter
13. Output voltage from WinCNC to the inverter to control RPM.
14. 10 volt signal from the inverter.
20. 5v+ from WinCNC
21. 5v ground from WinCNC
22. Connected to an opto and turns on and off the spindle.
23. Connected to my crosshair laser for X, Y zeroing.
30. Direction for the rotary (A) axis.
31. Step for the A axis.
32. Direction for Z axis.
33. Step for Z axis.
34. Direction for Y axis.
35. Step for Y axis.
36. Direction for X axis.
37. Step for X axis.

I still have enough out outputs for two more devices and 9 more inputs. I also could add up to 2 more axes.

There are also the previously mentioned 16 inputs and 16 outputs available on the PCI connector if I ever needed them.

I hope this is useful to someone. It would be a shame to write all of this for no one's benefit.

Butterknife