[300sniper]

My original computer from 2007 finally **** the bed. A friend put me together a new PC with a serial port and XP so I could continue running the Tormach Mach III that I am used to. I loaded the Tormach Mach III and my original license. When I go to start the machine, I do what I've always done, let Mach III come up, hit the start button to get the machine powered up and hit reset on the Mach III screen. When I do that, Mach III shows that the E-stop is still engaged. It is not, as everything in the machine cabinet powers up and the VFD/spindle will work on manual mode.

Any ideas of where to start to trouble shoot?

[GLCarlson]

Check and/or swap out the printer cable, or at least plug/unplug it.

If the new computer has never successfully run your machine, I'd suspect a problem there next. Maybe a bad serial port, misconfigured, something like that. Anything you can do to swap out major subsystems would be worth a check. Another thought- Tormach had a specific list of motherboards/processors that would run the 1100 with Mach3- are you using one of those? As I recall, there were some obscure system clock problems.

Then try reinstalling Mach, or everything, from scratch.

A few years ago my copy of Mach running under XP just went nuts. Mostly, it was a spindle problem, but other stuff too. I'd reinstall, it'd work for a while, then blow up. Happened with two totally different computers (same XP and Mach images, though). I switched to PP, problem went away. Zero changes to the machine, cables, etc.

[mattcnc123]

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[philbur]

A friend put me together a new PC with a serial port and XP so I could continue running the Tormach Mach III that I am used to. ...........................Any ideas of where to start to trouble shoot?

You need a parallel port and cable not serial. How did you manage to connect a serial cable to your Tormach mill?

Phil

[GLCarlson]

You need a parallel port and cable not serial. How did you manage to connect a serial cable to your Tormach mill?

Phil

Oh, dear. Talk about missing the skunk on the table! Right there in the manual, too. In fairness to the OP, though, it's a DB25 connector, not a Centronics 36 or 50 pin parallel. So a serial card would still fit the existing cable, I think.

[Stigoe]

Oh, dear. Talk about missing the skunk on the table! Right there in the manual, too. In fairness to the OP, though, it's a DB25 connector, not a Centronics 36 or 50 pin parallel. So a serial card would still fit the existing cable, I think.

If I remember correctly, a DB25 serial connector is the opposite of a parallel connector, so the cable shouldn't fit. Parallel is female while DB25 serial is male.

[Steve Seebold]

I just fired mine up after 8 months inactivity. At first I couldn’t get the monitor to come on and I thought “oh crap, I’m going to have to buy a new monitor. Turns out I was pushing the wrong button.

Then I couldn’t get the machine to move to zero all 3 axis. Again, I was pushing the wrong button. I was pressing the cycle start button and I kept getting the message E-stop is active. I pressed the zero XYZ button now all is well with the world.

[GLCarlson]

If I remember correctly, a DB25 serial connector is the opposite of a parallel connector, so the cable shouldn't fit. Parallel is female while DB25 serial is male.

Tormach manual, page 204 (the edition that came with the Series II machine): "You need a parallel printer port (25 pin D socket)"

A DB25 can and is used for both parallel and serial communications. Serial is more common. Obviously a male connector needs a female socket, so connector gender is irrelevant.

Back to the original question: 300sniper, any news on what the problem was?

[300sniper]

Yeah, yeah, OK, I got the terminology mixed up between the ports/connectors....

I ended up uninstalling everything and reinstalling my original Tormach MachIII from when I bought the machine. It looks like I was missing the XMLTweak program. I then got the correct printer port selected and loaded the most current version of Tormach Mach. It works now.