Machsupport Forum

Mach Discussion => Mach4 General Discussion => Topic started by: somebody15 on February 10, 2020, 07:46:18 AM

Title: Mach4 Parallel Port Axis Setup
Post by: somebody15 on February 10, 2020, 07:46:18 AM

Hi there,

I'm new to the CNC world and have been trying to setup a machine with mach4. I was able to set it up with mach3 and everything seemed to work fine, so I bought Darwin to try mach4.

The problem I'm having at the moment is that I can't get all axes to run at the same time. I have a direction pin for x as 7, and step pin for y is also 7. For some reason this worked in mach3 but Darwin doesn't seem to like this. Any help is much appreciated.

Thanks,
Aaron

Title: Re: Mach4 Parallel Port Axis Setup
Post by: Tweakie.CNC on February 10, 2020, 07:55:10 AM

Hi Aaron,

You need to be using a different pin number for each axis step / direction function.

Tweakie.

Title: Re: Mach4 Parallel Port Axis Setup
Post by: somebody15 on February 10, 2020, 07:57:31 AM

Thanks Tweakie,

I've just been cycling through different combinations of pins to see what works,
do you have a better way of finding the correct combination?

Aaron

Title: Re: Mach4 Parallel Port Axis Setup
Post by: Tweakie.CNC on February 10, 2020, 08:15:15 AM

Hi Aaron,

Which machine controller are you using ?
or
how are you connecting your stepper's or servo's ?

Tweakie.

Title: Re: Mach4 Parallel Port Axis Setup
Post by: somebody15 on February 10, 2020, 08:31:07 AM

Tweakie,

I'm using the TB6560 CNC Stepper Motor Driver Board Controller.
The machine was wired up by someone else so I'm not sure exactly how they're connected,
but it looks like there are 4 wires from the BOB to the stepper motors.

I did find an old package with suggested pin layouts, but those didn't seem to work.
Sorry for not being able to give better information.

Aaron

Title: Re: Mach4 Parallel Port Axis Setup
Post by: Tweakie.CNC on February 10, 2020, 09:54:14 AM

Hi Aaron,

There are several different types of those TB6560 boards perhaps attach a photo of your board so it can be identified. What Port and Pin configuration are you currently trying ?

Tweakie.

Title: Re: Mach4 Parallel Port Axis Setup
Post by: somebody15 on February 10, 2020, 10:26:15 AM

Hi Tweakie,

I've attached a picture below, hopefully you can see it.
That config that worked in mach3 that I'm trying now is (dir, step) x-(7,1) y-(3,7), z-(4,5).

Thanks again,
Aaron

Title: Re: Mach4 Parallel Port Axis Setup
Post by: Tweakie.CNC on February 11, 2020, 01:11:54 AM

Hi Aaron,

Can you try again with the picture   https://www.machsupport.com/forum/index.php?topic=24585.0

Tweakie.

Title: Re: Mach4 Parallel Port Axis Setup
Post by: Tweakie.CNC on February 11, 2020, 01:59:11 AM

Hi Aaron,

There are a number of different variants of this board but if your looks similar to this one then the common pin configuration is…

X Step  1
X Dir    7
Y Step  8
Y Dir    3
Z Step  5
Z Dir    4


X Enable  14
Y Enable    2
Z Enable    6   

Hope this helps.

Tweakie.

Title: Re: Mach4 Parallel Port Axis Setup
Post by: somebody15 on February 11, 2020, 07:38:01 AM

Hi Tweakie,

Here's the new picture.
I tried out those settings and they don't seem to work. I went back to mach3 to try there, but it also didn't seem to work there when
I switched the y step to an 8 (from 7). 

I have the enable pins exactly the same in mach3 so that's promising, but I wasn't able to find where to use the Enable pins in mach4 which may add to the problem. If you
could let me know where that setting is, that would be great  :)

Do you think it could be bad wiring or maybe something else that I've configured incorrectly?

Thanks for your help!
Aaron