[kstrauss]

Is there a table/drawing/whatever showing which pins in the DB-25 cable do what? My immediate interest is how to simulate the Reset button without being connected to my 770 S3.

[john-100]

I don't have a Tormach 770 to probe the 25 way pins

as I understand the DB25 will be wired like this -

Attachment 409658

the only pins the machine can use to signal an E-stop to the PC are pins 10 to 13 + pin 15

If your using Mach 3
then you can look at what pin has been assigned in pins & ports

I assume there is an equivalent for path pilot

I would guess the E-stop is going to be active high so th PC will see an E-stop when the printer cable is un plugged
if thats correct
you will only need to try having one of input pins (10 , 11, 12 , 13 , 15 ) connected to ground ( pins 18 to 25 ) at a time
to find which is the E-stop


John

[jwatte]

The PathPilot doesn't use the "parallel port" I/O interface; it has a FPGA and a PCI driver.
The pinouts are documented in the manual for the card, which I think is a 5i25: http://www.mesanet.com/pdf/parallel/5i25man.pdf
You then have to look in the LinuxCNC configuration files to figure out which pin on the board is bound to the estop function.
There's a comment in the file that claims "pin 15" (which is gpio 003 in Mesa terms.)
There's also a line that you can uncomment when no machine is attached:

# use the setp line below without a machine attached
# this isn't useful unless a properly flashed 5i25 is present
# no machine attached
#setp debounce.0.3.in 1

Presumably comment out the line above this section, too, which says "use this line with machine attached."

The file is tmc/configs/tormach_mill/tormach_mill_mesa.hal

[john-100]

correct me if I am wrong but as I understand it
pathpilot uses the Mesa card to emulate the parallel printer port so it connects to the same DB25 connector on the machine

John

[TurboStep]

correct me if I am wrong but as I understand it
pathpilot uses the Mesa card to emulate the parallel printer port so it connects to the same DB25 connector on the machine

John

Correct, the pins on the DB-25 cable are listed under Pin#.
Step

#                    IO Connections for P3
#    Mill Function   Pin#    I/O     Pri. func    Sec. func    Chan      Pin func        Pin Dir
#
#    Spindle Speed    1        0     IOPort       StepGen       4        Step/Table1     (Out)
#    Coolant         14        1     IOPort       None                                   (Out)
#    X Direction      2        2     IOPort       StepGen       0        Dir/Table2      (Out)
#    Estop Reset     15        3     IOPort       None                                   (In)
#    X Step           3        4     IOPort       StepGen       0        Step/Table1     (Out)
#    Spindle Dir     16        5     IOPort       None                                   (Out)
#    Y Direction      4        6     IOPort       StepGen       1        Dir/Table2      (Out)
#    Charge Pump     17        7     IOPort       PWM           0        PWM             (Out)
#    Y Step           5        8     IOPort       StepGen       1        Step/Table1     (Out)
#    Z Direction      6        9     IOPort       StepGen       2        Dir/Table2      (Out)
#    Z Step           7       10     IOPort       StepGen       2        Step/Table1     (Out)
#    A Direction      8       11     IOPort       StepGen       3        Dir/Table2      (Out)
#    A Step           9       12     IOPort       StepGen       3        Step/Table1     (Out)
#    X Limit         10       13     IOPort       None                                   (In)
#    Y Limit         11       14     IOPort       None                                   (In)
#    Z Limit         12       15     IOPort       None                                   (In)
#    Probe In        13       16     IOPort       None                                   (In)

[john-100]

Hi TurboStep

that table is exactly what kstrauss will be looking for

pin 15 is used for E-stop

John

[rdsi]

See attached spreadsheet. Although I reference the 7i92 it's the same for the 5i25 also.

[kstrauss]

Thanks! That appears to be exactly what I asked for and all of the signals make sense. However, what does the mill do to tell PathPilot that "Reset" has been pressed? Estop, accessory input and the limit switches appear to be the only signals from the mill to PathPilot.

[jwatte]

By "Reset," do you mean the green button that puts the machine out of e-stop?
As far as I can tell, when you press the red estop button, it's in estop, and that signal doesn't go away until you unscrew the red button and then press the green button.
The "Reset" button in the GUI is a GUI internal button; the mill doesn't tell the GUI about it.

[kstrauss]

Correct. I want to simulate pressing the green button without having the DB-25 connector plugged into my mill. You're probably right. Just don't send eStop!

[jwatte]

If the only reason you need "green button simulation" is that you want to run PathPilot in "emulation" mode, then you're probably OK just changing those two lines in the HAL file that I pointed out below. I haven't tested it myself, but that's what the comments in the files are saying should suffice ...

[TurboStep]

Correct. I want to simulate pressing the green button without having the DB-25 connector plugged into my mill. You're probably right. Just don't send eStop!

This is one of the instances I would not want to modify the hal file. Especially as it appears you want to do this on your actual machine controller - after all, you know how forgetful some people are
If I understand you correctly you want to simulate that machine is running and out of E-Stop so you can press Reset on PathPilot for testing. As John said, pin 15 is used for the E-Stop so you just need to connect it to ground. I use C10 cards from cnc4pc.com for most of my testing but you could just use an old DB-25 connector +/- cable or one of these just plugged into your controller connector:
https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_n...minal+Breakout
Step

[kstrauss]

That is exactly the answer that I needed. I have a DIN rail mount DB-25 breakout board which will be perfect for this purpose.
Please don't remind me about the possibility of being forgetful! I've never been good at remembering details and in my seventh decade the problem is even worse.