USB connection in win7

[flemgunner]

Hi I just got my CNC table and am running mach3 through a laptop with no parallel port. In searching the forums I saw that mach3 will not work with a USB connection. Is this actually the case? Is there a work around for this? Thanx for any help yall can give.

[Jeff_Birt]

You need an external motion controller card to run your machine over USB. I use/sell the SmoothStepper and find it works great. It supports about 95% of the functionality of the parallel port driver. http://soigeneris.com/Warp9.aspx

[flemgunner]

How does this hook up? I have a Taig cnc mill. I know you need to plug it into the computer but can that be accomplished with a USB cable? Is the output a printer type parallel cord?
Thanx much

[Jeff_Birt]

You plug a USB cable in between the computer and SmoothStepper. Ports 1&2 on the SmoothStepper are deigned to be Pin by Pin compatible with a standard parallel port, you use the LPH26 to DB25 cable to convert the SmoothStepper 26 pin header sockets into a regular parallel port cable connector. There is a driver and Mach plug-in that you install.

[carlos.lima]

Jeff, could you please clarify what 5% of the Mach 3 functions do not work with the USB adapter?

Thanks,

Carlos

[Jeff_Birt]

What I know of: Backlash control, SwapAxis, Plasma torch height control.