[chemsolder]

So I have accumulated almost everything for my first cnc build and in testing my electronics I have encountey a problem. My drivers hold my steppers when powered and I have carefully determined how to wire my breakout board and alas hook it all to the pc and I can only sucessfully control nothing. So on further inspection my parallel port is labeled as COM in the device manager, I understand it needs to be LPT OR EPP. So I went into the bios and there is no option to change the type of port it is...so is it a case of bios needs changed aka new board or just a different parrallel port? Or dare I load Linux CNC or will I still have the same problem?

[chemsolder]

Okay figured it out and solved a couple of other issues along the way. This comp is an off lease special and evidently no one ever thought to reinstal parrallel port drivers...no options for parrallel ports ib the bios either. So installed the driver after disassembling and reassembling to determine the brand of card. Then alas no address for the port in the device manager so as a workaround go into the system information open I/o ports and alas find all instances of the parallel card and record the address. One will work. So after the setback about 6hrs in and all my electronics work. My head hurts from reading though.

[rbraeking]

If the budget can handle it get an ethernet smooth stepper. Parallel port runs in real time and the ethernet card has a buffer. Works much better.
Bob

[Dennis Bohlke]

You cannot make a serial port a parallel port by software.

You need a parallel port card or another computer with a parallel printer port.