[esscott24]

I can't seem to get my Homing/Limits to work. I have tried almost everything.
The only way I can get them to work is if I disconnect my Breakout Board, but once I connect my breakout board the switch leds turn on as if they were triggered. I have tried running the Parallel port in EPP-1.9 and SPP, EPP-1.7 and SPP and Printer Modes but neither of them seem to help. Under Device Manager I told the Parallel port to accept all interrupts. This didn't help. Basically it seems like somewhere in the breakout board my input pins are grounding and theoretically being switched.
What am I doing wrong?
I'm using the following components:
Internal LPT1 Parallel port
Windows 7 32bit
This breakout board:
http://buildyourcnc.com/images/breakoutv1wiring.pdf
Please help me fix this very tricky problem I'm having. thanks for helping out, and if you need any more info let me know

[BAMCNC.COM]

Change your high to low or vise versa settings.

Or

Make all grounds go to one central location

Or

Put a small capacitor across your switches

Or

Flip a setting on your breakout board from pull up resistor to pull down resistor or something like that

Or

Explain more, pictures help.


.....wow tapatalk screwed that up....

[esscott24]

I tried what you suggested and still nothing. Although, I couldn't find the pullup resistor switch. I attached pictures showing what I mean about the switches in mach3 changing when I connect the breakout board. The first one, Mach3before, is before the breakout board is connected. Mach3after is after the breakout board is connected. Notice the led for m1home is lit before the board is connected then it turns off. Thanks again!

[neilw20]

Have you run Drivertest.exe? Might be driver problem.
Have you measured the voltages on the input lines?
What are they, both high and low state?
Is this a PC or a laptop?

[esscott24]

Have you run Drivertest.exe? Might be driver problem.
Have you measured the voltages on the input lines?
What are they, both high and low state?
Is this a PC or a laptop?

Yeah I did try driver test and my system was pulsing fine all the way up to 100khz. My input voltages are .40 in high and 0 in low state and i'm running Mach on a pc.
I was having this problem on an older computer with a different breakout board, so I got a new breakout board and the problem continued. Now I'm on a different computer with the same breakout board and still, my inputs don't work. This makes me think that maybe the problem is a hardware issue? not the computer?

[neilw20]

Put a switch between 12 and 5V near the corner of the board. Changing the switch should show on the diagnostics page, and the pin 12 should change from close to zero to 3 or 4v with the meter negative connected to the PC chassis.
0.4 doesn't make sense? Did you measure that on board terminals or the LPT pin, possibly accessible on the resistors near the LPT connector. You need to examine the card closely to find what pin is which resistor.

[esscott24]

Put a switch between 12 and 5V near the corner of the board. Changing the switch should show on the diagnostics page, and the pin 12 should change from close to zero to 3 or 4v with the meter negative connected to the PC chassis.
0.4 doesn't make sense? Did you measure that on board terminals or the LPT pin, possibly accessible on the resistors near the LPT connector. You need to examine the card closely to find what pin is which resistor.

I put a switch between 12 and 5v like you suggested and still nothing. I am getting a solid 5v supply from my 5v but it's not showing on the diagnostics page. I then downloaded a parallel port monitor and even it shows nothing. Again, it works fine without the Breakout board, but when connected, all pins change from high to low or vise versa. I attached screenshots showing what I mean. The .4 was from the board terminals. This issue is very frustrating!! By the way I'm using a built in LPT header on my mother board.

Edit: on the port monitor green stands for low, red for high.

[neilw20]

You have a problem with the breakout board.
Removing the LPT plug and reinserting should show an instant change of the states.
And it should do the same in Mach3 diagnostics screen. Something not right with the breakout board.
Try removing the plug at the breakout board end. Will prove the cable does what is expected.

[Vadim I]

I'm having same problem for 3 days already and cannot solve it either. It was working first few days, though. And it doesn't look like breakout board's problem. If you switch "Low active" in"Ports and pins" it changes to opposite, but steel now feedback. I'm suspecting the problem is between LPT and Mach. So did you find out what was the reason then?