Machsupport Forum
Mach Discussion => Mach3 under Vista => Topic started by: flemgunner on June 21, 2010, 12:14:52 PM
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Hi I just got my CNC table and am running mach3 through a laptop with no parallel port. In searching the forums I saw that mach3 will not work with a USB connection. Is this actually the case? Is there a work around for this? Thanx for any help yall can give.
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You need an external motion controller card to run your machine over USB. I use/sell the SmoothStepper and find it works great. It supports about 95% of the functionality of the parallel port driver. http://soigeneris.com/Warp9.aspx
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How does this hook up? I have a Taig cnc mill. I know you need to plug it into the computer but can that be accomplished with a USB cable? Is the output a printer type parallel cord?
Thanx much
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You plug a USB cable in between the computer and SmoothStepper. Ports 1&2 on the SmoothStepper are deigned to be Pin by Pin compatible with a standard parallel port, you use the LPH26 to DB25 cable to convert the SmoothStepper 26 pin header sockets into a regular parallel port cable connector. There is a driver and Mach plug-in that you install.
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Jeff, could you please clarify what 5% of the Mach 3 functions do not work with the USB adapter?
Thanks,
Carlos
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What I know of: Backlash control, SwapAxis, Plasma torch height control.