[Hrvoj]

Hello,

I have borrowed a DIY CNC 3 axis mill (small engraver). Man who built it (mechanically) doesn't have the configuration file anymore, and doesn't remember when was the last time he used it, or how he configured it, but it was definitely controlled by EMC2, and worked.

The stepper driver board is home made, so I cant use properties of existing boards in conf wizard, and I don't have any documentation about the driver...

I presume, who ever made the driver, used some guide... Here is a picture, maybe someone can recognize where did the design come from? Or the name of the driver?









When I plug parallel port, and power the machine, all axes get stiff, I cant move them by hand, so it should mean that the thing is working, mechanically. But, I can't configure it, I don't have much experience with EMC2, and I don't have all the information I need for configuration.

Need help with defining:
- driver characteristics, time, space, hold, setup...
- Parport base address

Not sure about parallel port setup. The man told me he remembers pins from 2 to 7 were axes and direction, all other were unused, except amplifier enabled what was pin 14 or 17. I have doubts, I think pin 1 should be something, ESTOP Out?

Thanks a bunch for any comment!

[doorknob]

The first and third photos look like they are the top and bottom of a parallel port breakout board.

The second photo looks like a stepper driver board for a single axis. It appears to be based on the Allegro A3977 microstepping driver IC, the datasheet of which can be seen here:

www.allegromicro.com/~/Media/Files/Datasheets/A3977-Datasheet.ashx‎

As for the parallel port base address, I believe that there is a linux lspci command that may give that.

[Hrvoj]

Hi!

still didn't get this machine operating :-)

The driver is something home made, didn't get any useful info about it.
I did manage to get some response from the machine. In cofig wizard, axes move when I run Test.

Problem I now have is that when I execute MDI command, axes move randomly, jerky, erratic... For instance, G1 X5 F10, X axes moves in small interval in both directions, random. Like in stepconfig Test...


Any ideas?

Is it software error; configuration error?
Or could it be that something is connected wrong, or malfunctioning?

[tommylight]

First in stepconf set the timings higher, set "step time" to 15000 and "step space" to 15000, then try the TEST AXIS and see if the motors move correctly. That should fix your problem if you set the output pins right.
Regards,
Tom