Mach3 and Roland Mills

[Klingbeil]

i've got a Roland MDX-540SA and it's connection is USB only.  it is also recognized by the system as a printer.

has anyone tried using Mach3 with one of Roland's new systems?  i've fiddled around with the Mach3 demo and i can't seem to find any way of redirecting it to the USB connection.  i realize in the requirements section it says:

"if using the Mach3 Parallel Port Driver - laptops are not supported because the power saving features of the chipsets disrupt the pulse stream, PCMCIA and USB parallel adaptors will *not* work."

but i assumed that meant that it would not work through USB to parallel adapters or do i have that all wrong?

[Hood]

Mach will not work over USB it is strictly parallel port if you are using Machs pulsing engine. There is an external controller called the SmoothStepper that connects via USB but it is still no use to you I am afraid. Only chance you have of getting it to work would be a rewire and likely you would need at least a breakout board if not more hardware.

Hood

[Klingbeil]

thanks for the response.  i'm not sure if it's considered blasphemous, but would you happen to know of some controller software that operates via USB since Mach3 won't work?

[Hood]

Afraid I dont, I think the problem would be is that USB is not really any use for controlling software unless there is hardware at the other end that can do the actual movements of the motors. This is due to USB not being real time so you would not get proper motion. The way the SmoothStepper works is it gets the information from Mach and buffers it so that there should be a constant stream of info for the SmoothStepper to execute. I would presume your machine is similar but to get it to work with Mach you would need to write a plugin and that is not for the faint hearted. I would expect the hardware in your machine would be proprietary so likely your only choice would be the software that it is meant to work with.
Hood

[Klingbeil]

bugger...

well, thank you for your help

[Hood]

Dont take it as 100% certain, its just my thoughts on the matter, there may well be someone that has written software specifically for these machines (other than the manufacturers) but I am as certain as I can be that none of the usual culprits such as Mach or EMC will be able to do the job out of the box.

Hood