Sherline Mill and MACH3

[Chiun]

I have a SHERLINE mill with the SHERLINE parallel interface. Presently running it under LINUX with EMC2.
Does anyone presently run this interface under MACH3?  The computer is a dual boot Windows XP pro and
Linux so I can easily go back and forth to try them both.

Chiun

[Hood]

If you know the pinouts then it should be easy enough to do, also note there is a Sherline Half Pulse Mode in Mach which is specifically for Sherlines and gives the increaed pulse width that they require.
Hood

[Chiun]

There are pinouts in the manual as well in the EMC2 config file I am using now under LINUX.  I have the stepper motors working on the mill now through the parallel interface. I was hoping that MACH3 could address the parallel port on a software level. I know that MACH3 also can work through a USB port, which is of course a form of serial port. I did have a time getting the mill to work properly as I was driving it too hard (acceleration and step settings) and will probably have to do the same thing when I start playing with MACH3.
     I guess my next step is to down load MACH3 onto the mill computer and try it. Anyway thanks for the input. I am sure I will be back with a ton of questions if I get it running.
     Besides engraving I want to do PCB routing.  Right now the cheep definitive starting point appears to be Eagle cad.  Then there must be something to convert that to g-code. 

Chiun

[Hood]

If you know the pinouts then it should be a simple matter of asigning them in Mach, just make sure you choose the Sherline  1/2 pulse mode. You will see all the pin options and Sherline option from the Config menu then Ports and Pins.
 Mach can only control axis over USB if there is a motion control device with a plugin, there are a few such devices, SmoothStepper and DSPMC being two of them, if however you are running EMC from the parallel port then it would seem prudent to run Mach from that also, at least for the time being.
Hood

[RICH]

Once your up and running you may want to do a search about PCB  board routing as there have been a few recent posts about it from users.
RICH

[AndyIvan]

Dude... You have to check out Target 3001. It is so sweet, and it is free to download. It can generate G-code to import into Mach3.

http://server.ibfriedrich.com/wiki/ibfwikien/index.php?title=Main_Page

Andrew

[TramAlot]

It was pretty easy for me, I did the same thing. I built both from parts so I had a twin headache.

the video's helped a lot, up top under support