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Messages - ART

441
Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 Printer Port Discussions
« on: August 18, 2014, 09:28:14 PM »
Sage:

  No, I mean on Outputs only. Just leave activelow unchecked in mach4 for all output signals.

Im taking a look at your ini file now..

Art

442
Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 Printer Port Discussions
« on: August 18, 2014, 09:01:52 PM »
Peter:

  Im still trying to figure out how that can be and keep coming up with it being impossible. Im sure
soemthing will tickle me eventually as to how that could happen.. I just cant repeat it, If I turn off all inputs and
ouputs for port 1, I can tickle every pin and watch its responce with no mirroring.. 

Hopefully soon somethign will show itself..

Art

443
Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 Printer Port Discussions
« on: August 18, 2014, 07:47:23 PM »
Peter:

  My apologies,,.. Im losing it. I added structures and routines to fix the problem, and missed a switch to actually turn it on
in the release. This one is repaired.

Note:  As to the previous discussion on signal levels. Use the Negate in Darwin to select the appropriate level for a signal, but NEVER
use the low active setting in M4, always leave that turned off. The reason is that M4 tells Darwin to set a signal to 1 or 0, but it doesnt
tell me if thats "active" or "inactive", so it can confuse Darwin, specially on things liek PWM. So as a rule.. never check "Low Active" on
any M4 signal. Only use "Negate" in Darwin to reverse a signal and things should look much more normal to you..

  From this version replace both your dll and your plugin. No version numbers change on this one..

Art

444
Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 Printer Port Discussions
« on: August 18, 2014, 07:27:04 PM »
Hmm.

  I suspect a lot of this is because Im used to dealing with raw data. Some pins on the printer port are inverted by the hardware.
When a program sets pin 11 to active = 1, the pin on the actual cable goes low. Several pins are auto-negated that way. Mach3
the program reversed that as I recall, but to a driver data ia data, so it never reversed it.
   My feeling at the time was that one just checks "Negate signal" to make it whatever polarity you wish when its active. Now M4
having a setting for low active does confuse that issue I must admit. :).

  Pin 1, 11, 14 and 17 read reverse to logic, that is when set active a 1 is sent to the hardware, which inverts it and sets the pin
low. Checking Negate on each of these pins should make them work as youd expect.. To Darwins design,  the only important
toggle was if the pin was active..or inactive. The "negate" checkbox was to make the Active state give the appropriate output.

   It sounds however, as if I may have screwed up in the plugin by not taking M4's ActiveLow setting into account. Ill take a
look and rationlise the two systems.. In the meantime, check or uncheck "Negate" on your signals on those pins ( or any pin)
to get the level you need for an active signal.

Art

445
Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 Printer Port Discussions
« on: August 18, 2014, 03:57:28 PM »
Peter:

   I think the checkbox was it. The system wasnt reconfiguring after selecting that, and the system requires a bit to be changed in the
control word of the port..

  This version should fix it.. with any luck. :)

Art

446
Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 Printer Port Discussions
« on: August 18, 2014, 03:31:11 PM »
Peter:

  Thx , Ill check that checkbox....

Art

447
Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 Printer Port Discussions
« on: August 18, 2014, 02:44:36 PM »
Peter:

 >>In addition, I have been noticing that the port selection for setting pins 2-9 as inputs was cleared.  I thought I had been seeing this before but wasn't certain.  It has happened with the 'second' port (dcc9) set a

  Are you saying port 1 is 0xdcc8 and port 2 is oxdcc9?

  That shouldn't be possible.. or at least is very unusual... are you sure those are the address's?

Art

448
Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 Printer Port Discussions
« on: August 18, 2014, 02:35:09 PM »
Sage:

   The code in the driver wont allow M4 or Darwin to toggle any pin unless its enabled. BUT, you have to restart M4 after config of Darwin to ensure all changes are done, it CAN lead to confusion.

  Now if your system IS toggling a pin when you enable/disable darwin and you think it shouldnt because no pins are enabled, do me a
favour and send me a copy of the machine.ini in your profile folder. It shows whats truly enabled or not..

Art

449
Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 Printer Port Discussions
« on: August 18, 2014, 02:30:01 PM »
>>Why cant we or cant you make it so that we can use a regular USB to DB25 connector you know the ones you see for a few bucks.  If it would work I would assume it could run my BOB faster and allow us lab top users a quick cheap connection.

  Its not possible, those arent real printer ports, you cant control them with time being a constant, their a serial device so very slow...

Art

450
Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 Printer Port Discussions
« on: August 18, 2014, 09:11:02 AM »
Peter:

 In between me and my machine, I have a PMDX-112 ( one of the best diags :), it has 15 toggle switches for setting the states of pins.
Ive tested it thorougly today and all inputs seem to be exactly as they should with no mirroring...but... I did have a bit of trouble. Turns out I had motor 3 enabled and set to my port1 inputs. SO I was getting very strange results. The lesson was to make sure NO inputs or outputs or motors are tuned on and set to the pins 2-9
when their used as inputs unless they should be pointed there. Its easy when playing with darwins setup to turn on an output or motor and have it screw
up the data your looking at..

 Just a thought..
Art