Gecko G540 adn Mach3 won't talk (win 7)

[sawcnc]

I have done the basic wiring of  the Gecko g540, i.e. power and estop. When I turn the charge pump off, I get a green light. I hit the estop and I get a red light.  So far so good.

In Mach3 I have enabled  the motors  in the the Ports & Pins config and set the charge pump to port 1, pin 16 under the Output Signals tab. The Rosewill has two ports and I have tried both of the first hex values found in "i/o range"   under the Device Manager -> Ports -> Resources. Still only getting a red light from the gecko.  I am using the LPT3 hex C00.

I have looked at three different set up guides and think I covered everything they told me too. I know the cable works because I did a circuit check on each pin.

Windows 7 Home Premium
Dell Inspiron 560s
Pocessor: Pentium(R) Dual-Core CPU E5800 @ 3.20 GHz 3.20 GHz
INstalled Memory (RAM) 3.00 GB
Sysem Type: 32-Bit Operating System
Rosewill RC-304 2 port Parallel PCI card with the moschip driver.

Geckodrive G540
48V 12.5A switching power supply

[Hood]

Have you tried with the ChargePump disabled?
Hood

[sawcnc]

If I turn the charge pump off on the g540 I get a green light. If I hit the estop I get a fault but no response from Mach3.
If I disbale the charge pump in Mach3, while it is turned off on the g540, I get the same response. No response from Mach3 when I hit the estop and no fault on g540 when I  hit reset in Mach3.

[Hood]

Afraid I dont know enough about the G540 to help with that. What I would do though is start a basic profile, only have one axis enabled, E-Stop configured as active low. Unhook the cable from the G540 then put a volt meter on the Dir pin and Gnd pin of the cable and jog the axis back and forth to see if voltage corresponds, if it does you know the port is at least the correct address and that pin works. You could then try the other axis enabled if you wished.
 If all that works then you know the problem is the way the G540 is set up is the problem, whether its wiring or config in Mach.

Maybe someone who is familiar with the G540 will be able to help more on that side of things.
Hood

[sawcnc]

It looks as if there is no signal coming out of either of the parallel ports (my meter is not very good so I will need to try again with a diffenet one). The device manager says that both ports are working properly.

[Hood]

Does the voltage change between 5v and 0v as you jog one way then the other?
Hood

[sawcnc]

I am testing pins 2 and 3 (separately) using pin 25 as the ground. No signal. Zero.

The cable is good becuase I checked all the pins.

I really want to spin the motors.

[Hood]

Sounds like its not the correct address for some reason, think you said you tried both that were listed so afraid I dont know what else to suggest.
Hood

[sawcnc]

Thank you! 

Your confidence that it was an address problem got me to retest everything again. I unplugged the PCI card and and put it back in. It lookes like LPT2 and LPT3 switched places. With the charge pump off on the g540 and with it disabled in Mach3 I am able to to move the motors. Mach3 responds when I hit the estop but I don't see a fault on the g540 when I hit reset, but that may be normal.

I was worried I had a faulty PCI card or even worse something wrong with the computer.  Now to figure out how to get the charge pump to work.

[Hood]

Good you are going
I remember seeing issues with the Chargepump settings and the G540 but think most were related to using the SmoothStepper with the G540 so may not apply.
One thing I seem to remember is the setting to keep chargepump on in E-Stop was to be used, its on General Config page. Also recently someone else had issues and it seems to be because their port is not in EPP mode, so see if yours is.
Hood