Machsupport Forum

Mach Discussion => General Mach Discussion => Topic started by: Macks on October 06, 2017, 02:29:54 PM

Title: Mach 3 wont speak with Mill
Post by: Macks on October 06, 2017, 02:29:54 PM

Hey everyone, im very new to all this so bear with me please and thank you.

 I am running a routing mill that was recently purchased. The program isn't speaking with the mill.
What i know:
I'mm running XP.
Mach version is 3.043.066
The mill and router have power.
It's a three axis mill (X,Y and Z).
I am running with a nine pinned cable and a parallel port.
The driver is up to date.
I uninstalled the program, reinstalled, restarted the computer and ran the Driver test before opening Mach 3.
The program will run the path as if it's cutting but wont move the mill.
I have the proper Port # activated (i think).
Step Low is active on all three axis.
Step port and Dir port on all three axis are set at "1".
Step Pin# on three axis are set at "9".
Dir Pin# on all three axis are set at "0" 
All three Axis are enabled.

Thanks for your time and effort, this seams like a very helpful community.

Title: Re: Mach 3 wont speak with Mill
Post by: joeaverage on October 06, 2017, 02:51:42 PM

Hi,
Machs parallel port uses a db25 plug, that is it has 25 pins. Would you pull the plug out and have a closer look...its not impossible its nine pin
but it means its not a Mach parallel port.

Craig

Title: Re: Mach 3 wont speak with Mill
Post by: Tweakie.CNC on October 07, 2017, 03:03:41 AM

Hi Macks,

The Mach3 manual can be found here; http://www.machsupport.com/help-learning/product-manuals/

If you check out Section 5 it should help you set your Step and Direction pins to the correct values (all three axes should not share the same Step and Direction pins).

As Greg has said, you need to be using a 'straight-through' 25 way cable between your Computer LPT port and your Breakout board / Controller.

Tweakie.