[phantomcow2]

I am at the point in my mill conversion that I need step and direction pulses tomake finish it off. And so, I load Mach 3 and go into the ports & pins setup. Step pin is 2, direction 3. Before I attach motors, I just thought I would put a voltmeter between step and ground and direction and ground, just to make sure all is functioning. I tried it with a bare bone's breakout board, 0 volts everytime I tested. I was holding down the mouse button to jog. I tried it with a CNC4PC board that replaces the 3.3v pulses with 5v pulses, same result.

I tried it with KCAM after that, thinking maybe it's some of my hardware. Well I got 3.31volts with the bare bones breakout board. And the CNC4PC functioned well, it rectified all to the full 5v. With both programs I am trying to jog in the X axis (not hooked up yet).

Can anybody think of some possible causes of this?

[HayTay]

Make sure that the port you are trying to control is enabled and set to the correct address in Mach3 under 'Config -> Ports & Pins'. Most parallel ports use either 0x378 or 0x278 as the assigned address. If you are using an I/O card the address may be something else entirely. My I/O card, for example, was assigned and is using address 0x1020. Verify the address of your parallel port using Windows Device Manager -> Ports (COM & LPT) -> 'Your parallel ports Properties' -> Resources Tab.

See screen captures below...

[ger21]

Also make sure each pin is NOT set to port 0, which is the default i think.

And if you measure 0V on the direction pin while jogging, jog in the other direction. One direction should be 0V, the other direction 5V.

[phantomcow2]

I've taken a screenshot of my working KCAM configuration, and the non working Mach setup. Here it is:

[ger21]

Your step and direction port settings are wrong (the last 2 columns). They should all be set to port 1, You have the port number matching the pin number. You only have one port, port #1

[phantomcow2]

oooh, I see! It's port, not pin. Heh. So I should change all values on the last two columns to port 1 and it should be all set to go? Thanks

[ger21]

As long as port 1 is the one you're using.

[phantomcow2]

wow, that was easy. I just tested it with my voltmeter, all functioned properly. Tomorrow I will at last have three functioning axes! Thankyou again

[HayTay]

Right ON!!! I'm glad you got it going.

Mystery solved, good job ger21 and phantomcow2. A picture is definitely worth a bunch of posts.