I've been toying around whit some of the free CNC control programs that can be found on the net, and most of them relie on a parallel port to run the servo/stepoper drivers.
I don't like hooking up some heavy gear to the LPT port on my computer, as the wiring is too much of a hazzle, and the LPT port has a finite number of IO lines. And not to mention the timing issues in Windows.
What I'd like to do is to program a MCU to interpret gcode blocks on the fly, being fed from a serial connection from the computer.
The gcode could be sent to the MCU using a simple program like hyper terminal.
To configure the MCU, a little Visual basic application could be used to make a config file that is sent prior to the gcode, so the axis, max move-speed and all other required information doesn't have to be hard-coded into the MCU.
I'm currently working on a simpler version, that doesn't use GCode, but my own simple control syntax, and it also just operate one axis at a time.
I'm trying to build this from stuff I already have in my "junk box" and geccodrivers are not something to be found there, but I have alot of sanyo STK6713 stepper drivers that I have ripped from discarded xerox-machines.
Is his a "finished" topic or should I post some more info?