Pendant Settings and Brains

[ducati]

I am trying to setup a C32 Board on a 2nd LPt to operate a 6 axis pendant.
Communications  worked when I readdressed my Mother Board port to Port 2
and the add-on PCI port to Port 1.  However, when I enable the "Disable LPT2"
brain my spindle will not run unless I hold the enable button.
I am guessing the brain has some issues but not sure.
Does anyone have a CNC4PC C32 board and 6 axis pendant working
where all the functions such as feed and speed adjustments (axis 5 and 6)
work.  I am running a VFD controlled from the board with step and direction
voltage output for speed and direction.

Thanks

[Jackal]

ducati,

I don't have an answer to help you. But, I ordered the same C32  board you have, and  I also plan on using a pendant with the 5th  & 6th axis for speed and feed override.

When you get it sorted out, let us know what caused this. I may have the same problem.


Thanks,
JAckal

[AndrewM]

or if you figure it out let him know :p

[ducati]

So far what is partial working..

Plug the pendant into your MB parallel... I have one on my computer.

Give the MB parallel port the address for your 2nd parallel port.

Then give the PCi parallel port the address  that is usually Port 1.

This way there is no conflicts with IEEE standards and voltage.

The "disable LPT2 Brains" seems to cause me a conflict.

I am not running that brain.

My pendant jogs x, y, and z .  No speed or feed adjustment functions...yetr.

However, the enable button does not cause the jog screen to go to
MPG mode.  I have to select MPG from the Mach Jog screen.
The enable button does allow me to select which axis I want to jog
once I make the MPG selection in Mach Jog Screen.

I will post any progress.

[Jackal]

You are plugging the Pendant into the parallel port on the computer, correct?

I was planning on connecting it to my c32 board like this link here shows:


http://cnc4pc.com/Tech_Docs/C32R1_Product_Integration.pdf




You might check with Art at CNC4PC. Yours could be an earlier edition, and  will only connect the way you have it.



Hope this helps,

JAckal

[ducati]

No, I hooked the pendant into 2nd parallel port connection built onto the c32 board.
Not directly into the computer.  Yes, I did follow the instructions, but
there seems to be some issues with voltage and the second pci card slot.
For me the progress so far has been to give the Mother Board parallel
card(usually Port 1) the address of Port 2, and Port 2  adress port 1 (0378).

[cncman172]

Guys,

I think if you examine your CNC4PC cards closely and examine the manual you will notice Arturo has incorporated IEEE 1284 circuitry to his break out boards.  The functional diagrams are in the manual sections 4.1 and 4.2.

The circuit consists of a 1.2K pull up resistor and a 39 ohm series resistor.  This circuit is NOT compatible with most PCI parallel cards which incorporate similar circuitry.  I discovered this the hard way and purchased two C10 cards from CNC4PC and could not get my pendant to work. 

So whats wrong?  It ends up that most PCI cards have incorporated their own pull up resistors on the board.  Now when you plug in the C32 card to the PCI parallel port with pull ups you end up with an equivalent pull up close to 600 ohms which takes a great deal of current to drive low.  If you check you MACH screen with the LED display it will always show high or if you switch the logic on the BOB it will always show low.  He uses ALS245 drivers which can not output enough current to overcome the pull up or pull down.

The fix:  The C32 would probably work if you had a mother board that had two built in parallel ports as they normally do not have the pull up resistors.  Well you probably are not going to find a mother board with two parallel ports very easily.
You can carefully follow each input and output pin on the card and find the 1.2K pull up resistors and remove them carefully.  You would also have to remove the 39 ohm resistors and replace them with jumpers and then the card will work.  You can prove this to yourself by just test on input pin and trace the signal on the card until you find the two resistor on that signal lead.  I asked Arturo for the schematic but he would not provide it so this could be done much easier.  Anyway you guys are not the only ones impacted, if you check CNCzone others have the same issues.  It took me three days of trouble shooting and drawing my own schematic of his C10 card to be able to see the problem.  My C10 cards now work perfect which these modes and my pendant actually works.  Hope this points you in the right direction.

CNCMAN172

[ducati]

So far I have had no luck getting the Speed /Feed overides to work with my C32 board.  Arturo has talked
about a new Brain but so far unless I missed it I have not seen anything yet.  If anyone has a fix please let me know
Thanks