Guest
Show Posts
1
Show"N"Tell ( Your Machines) / Controller and drivers
« on: October 04, 2018, 12:40:42 PM »
Hello everyone, I'm new to the CNC world, and I'm a bit lost regarding controllers and drivers, and how the parallel port for mach 4 works.
I'm trying to fix an old gas-cutter at my dads shop, the cutter is from the 1980, and is not working correctly anymore.
Here are some pictures of the gas-cutter setup and a quick explanation on each image: https://imgur.com/a/qD02SCu
My plan was to replace the motors, and create a new setup so it would be controlled via a PC (Mach 4). But I don't quite understand the parallel port function with Mach 4, or if it's really necessary to have? Can I skip the parallel port if I have an external controller ? What solution is better, using the parallel port or an external driver ?
Is there any other hardware I need? As I understand it the setup would be like this: PC->Controller->Drivers->Motors, is this correct ?
Thanks for any help,
TJoensen
I'm trying to fix an old gas-cutter at my dads shop, the cutter is from the 1980, and is not working correctly anymore.
Here are some pictures of the gas-cutter setup and a quick explanation on each image: https://imgur.com/a/qD02SCu
My plan was to replace the motors, and create a new setup so it would be controlled via a PC (Mach 4). But I don't quite understand the parallel port function with Mach 4, or if it's really necessary to have? Can I skip the parallel port if I have an external controller ? What solution is better, using the parallel port or an external driver ?
Is there any other hardware I need? As I understand it the setup would be like this: PC->Controller->Drivers->Motors, is this correct ?
Thanks for any help,
TJoensen