[stormelf]

hi all me again (problem man :bs: )

i have pminmo's http://pminmo.com/discrete/discrete.htm unipolar driver card
and bob card (interface card) http://pminmo.com/4axis/4axisinterface.htm

i hook them like the picture. pminmo helped me i did what he says and i can give little steps(manual) to the stepper. but i couldnt control the stepper from pc?
i try turbocnc and mach2/3 but i coudlnt make it.
i read and watch the tutorials but i couldnt setup it up i think?
could anybody (group) help me.
i am in trouble.
:drowning:

[pminmo]

Stormelf has verified the his built hardware to the db25. XP is part of the problem, but I believe Mach3 can handle XP. Maybe a mach 3 user out there?

[ESjaavik]

@stormelf: I think you should describe your problem better.
- What do you mean when you say you can control it manually?
- Does it not step at all when you control it from your PC, or does it step erratically?
- What PC do you use? (A laptop may not be able to drive the load.)
- How long is your cable from parport to the controller?
- Do you have access to an oscilloscope or a multimeter with frequency counting?
- Any other observation you think might be worth mentioning?

I looked at the schematic of the 4-axis BOB, and it loads the parport with LED's. You might try to take out the LED's to avoid the unnecessary load.

@Pminmo: It cannot be XP, as he write he used TurboCNC, and it runs only in DOS, usually by booting from a DOS floppy. It will not run in a DOS shell under XP at all.

[pminmo]

ESjaavik,

As far as the hardware, I guided him to the point of using pins 2,3 for step and direction with a simple pushbutton switch from pin 2 to pin 25(common) to verify that the boards were functioning properly.

Suggest you take a closer look at the schematic: http://pminmo.com/4axis/4axisBOBdata.pdf

I assume your referring to the db25 pins 13,12,11 and 15? The is no load because of the LED's, power comes from the onboard 5V regulator, the led current path is via the switches to ground that come off board. Those pins are input pins to the pc. So removing the LED's will gain him nothing.

Turbocnc will load from a dos shell in XP, just will not control the parallel port because it tries to write to it directly. In some systems it will hang, in some XP will issue an error, in some it will look like it did something when it didn't talk to the PP at all.

[stormelf]

my system is athlon2500+ 1gb ram 256mb 6800le (vga) 240gb hdd and 300w p.s.

parallel ports cable is a standart cable above 1.5~2m.(max)
i can control it manually like pminmo said.you can control with parallel ports pins 2,3 and 25.

[madmickiii]

HI ,

It could also possibly be that the parallel port is configued wrongly, modern ports have more functionality that a straight forward (old machine) type. Check the PC's BIOS settings.

No gaurantees thou.

Mike

[ESjaavik]

my system is athlon2500+ 1gb ram 256mb 6800le (vga) 240gb hdd and 300w p.s.

parallel ports cable is a standart cable above 1.5~2m.(max)
i can control it manually like pminmo said.you can control with parallel ports pins 2,3 and 25.

OK, so it is not controlled through the parallel port. Then it is quite possible the port does not have enough drive capability. Try to blow the dust off of an old PC and try that to make sure the boards works properly.

But first try Mike's suggestion, it's a good point.

Also using Mach3 check the documentation regarding the use of specialdriver.bat. I don't remember what it's about, but it has something with APIC to do as far as I can recall.

[stormelf]

ok i will try my old pc