[willfly4food]

Will the USB to serial port work with the G540 and Mach3?
I cant think of any other way to work with the G540 other than the USB to serial port....
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[tjb1]

If you want to run Linux, you can use an arduino for the usb to serial conversion.

Check out question 5 here - FAQ « Emc2Arduino

I have no idea how it would work, may play around with it a bit once I get my stepper motors. It would be a lot cheaper to run EMC(Linux Controller)(free!) and use an arduino to send the programs than to buy mach3 and a parallel port.

[willfly4food]

This is true but i haven't really wanted to build a Linux system... although that is a good idea to save 175 + serial conversion....

If you want to run Linux, you can use an arduino for the usb to serial conversion.

Check out question 5 here - FAQ « Emc2Arduino

I have no idea how it would work, may play around with it a bit once I get my stepper motors. It would be a lot cheaper to run EMC(Linux Controller)(free!) and use an arduino to send the programs than to buy mach3 and a parallel port.

[keebler303]

A G540 does not have a SERIAL port.
A G540 does have a PARALLEL port.
A G540 will not work with a USB to PARALLEL converter.
A G540 will work with a smoothstepper which uses USB but its more money still.

[willfly4food]

A G540 does not have a SERIAL port.
A G540 does have a PARALLEL port.
A G540 will not work with a USB to PARALLEL converter.
A G540 will work with a smoothstepper which uses USB but its more money still.

So how is one suppose to use a laptop with the g540 without the smoothstepper. I have seen them on youtube working... My laptop only has usb ports

[keebler303]

I have seen someone walk on water on youtube. Does that mean I can do it?

If you don't believe me, do your own research.

If your laptop has a parallel port, it might work with mach3 (doubtful).
If your laptop has a pentium "m" processor, its probably not going to work even if you have a parallel port.

YOU CAN'T CONNECT THE G540 TO ANYTHING USB WITHOUT FIRST GOING THROUGH A SMOOTHSTEPPER OR SOME SIMILAR DEVICE.

DO YOU KNOW WHAT A SMOOTHSTEPPER IS?
DO YOU KNOW THAT THEY AREN'T USING ONE ON YOUTUBE?

[willfly4food]

HAHAHA someone has had their crack for the day! Ease up on the CAPS! I did not have any attitude when I asked the simple question.

Moving on... Thank you for the info on the Pentium M processor.
The only reason I wanted to use a laptop is to keep a cleaner space.
So.... I was trying to find out what laptops would work with it. I know there are laptops out there that WILL run it. However I do not know the brands/components that are compatible.
Where is a good trustworthy place to purchase a smooth stepper?

I have seen someone walk on water on youtube. Does that mean I can do it?

If you don't believe me, do your own research.

If your laptop has a parallel port, it might work with mach3 (doubtful).
If your laptop has a pentium "m" processor, its probably not going to work even if you have a parallel port.

YOU CAN'T CONNECT THE G540 TO ANYTHING USB WITHOUT FIRST GOING THROUGH A SMOOTHSTEPPER OR SOME SIMILAR DEVICE.

DO YOU KNOW WHAT A SMOOTHSTEPPER IS?
DO YOU KNOW THAT THEY AREN'T USING ONE ON YOUTUBE?

[keebler303]

Yep, I smoke it every day.

The dialog is something like this:

You: I wanna do it.
Me: You can't without this.
You: But they did it on youtube.
Me: NO, no they didn't.

I was hoping caps would get the point across. Just because one guy on youtube has a computer that works does not mean yours will. In fact it cannot work without some type of smoothstepperesque device.

If I hadn't been smoking so much crack I would be able to provide you with the link to the maker of the smoothstepper, but since I am completely blown, you'll have to spend 5 seconds to google it.

Peace
Matt

[salzburg]

DynoMotion probably has a better solution for running mach3 with USB. They also have

a Yahoo group with more information. You can also get USB cards compatible with

mach3 on ebay, there are hundreds of them.

[willfly4food]

Thank you for your helpful post. I appreciate your help. I will check them out.

DynoMotion probably has a better solution for running mach3 with USB. They also have

a Yahoo group with more information. You can also get USB cards compatible with

mach3 on ebay, there are hundreds of them.

[AiR_GuNNeR]

I have used the G540 with an older Dell D530 laptop without problem. I started out using the smooth stepper with it, but wanted to be able to home all three axis at once which the smooth stepper driver does not support. I plugged it directly into the parallel port and it worked fine.

[jimhurlburt]

The basic general problem here is that on a scale of microseconds, usb is not real time. It will not only have lag, but the lag is not predictible. This is why Mach has to use smoothstepper (or some sort of similar gadget) to buffer the usb data stream and feed it to the steppers with the time jitter filtered out.

It might well be possible to set up a linux box using a real time kernel, very very carefully control what is using the usb bus, and manage to make it work. Given that, it should be fairly simple to write a module that EMC could use for IO that would use the usb port to run a breakout board that would run the steppers. But, you probably couldn't use a usb mouse or keyboard.

It would almost certainly be possible to use an arduino and build a 'smooth stepper', then an output from there on a parallel cable to the g540. Might even be worthwhile. But you're gonna have a 'smooth stepper', just spelled different, between your usb port and the g540.

Again, the basic problem is that on a small time scale, usb is not time determinant on how long it will take a signal to get from the motherboard to the steppers. You can get lots and lots of data there fairly quickly, but you can't depend on the timing when you are talking a few hundred microseconds.

I did some serious research on this one time when I was looking at trying to build an engine with electronic controlled valves 50 microseconds was way beyond reach for a two way data exchange.

Jim

[willfly4food]

Air gunner: thank you I will see if I can't find one. I am sure there are some used d530's out there.

Jim: thank you for the great explanation. Now I understand why you can't use USB to parallel.

So I'm thinking it will be cheaper to find a desktop with a parallel port.....

[willfly4food]

Ok so will all desktop computers that meet or exceed the requirements work with mach3 as long as they have a printer port?

[tjb1]

Not sure but I bought a parallel port off ebay last night for $4, not much to lose and with the month shipping I might be ready when it gets here.

PCI IEEE 1284 Parallel Printer LPT Port I/O Card ECP EPP SP C

http://bit.ly/ITg1R0

[RPCElectronics]

I'm in no way an expert on stepper drivers yet, but I will say that I tried at first to use an older Dell C500 that DOES have a hardware parallel port and I had many problems with missed steps and timing delays. I had read this was a likely problem, but I gave it a try.

I eventually picked up a refurbed HP workstation with XP Pro and a hardware parallel port. So far, for my testing, it's working great! I am even looking into adding in a PCI parallel port to add on limit switches, ect.

[willfly4food]

So its still hit or miss with the desktops...

I'm in no way an expert on stepper drivers yet, but I will say that I tried at first to use an older Dell C500 that DOES have a hardware parallel port and I had many problems with missed steps and timing delays. I had read this was a likely problem, but I gave it a try.

I eventually picked up a refurbed HP workstation with XP Pro and a hardware parallel port. So far, for my testing, it's working great! I am even looking into adding in a PCI parallel port to add on limit switches, ect.

[RPCElectronics]

So its still hit or miss with the desktops...

Actually, the Dell C500 is a laptop, so I can only speak for THAT particular laptop not playing nicely with Mach3. The HP desktop I picked up is working very well.