Ok guys I bought a plasma that was running the microkinetics system and I am in the process of upgrading to Mach 3 through a cheap sain-smart 5 axis breakout board I bought off Amazon. The problem I am having is i can't get the high low signals out of the PC into the board. I have managed to make two motors run properly but one is on a different port of the board. For example the x axis is wired to the z portion of the board and the y is on the y axis of the board. Both motors are working but i know it isn't right as i have 5 volts on most of the pins on the breakout board all the time. On the pins i have the motors wired to both have 5v on the step and direction pins at the same time. When I press the left arrow for example the voltage stays at 5v while it turns one direction. When I reverse direction motor shows 5v the slowly drops down but returns as soon as you release the key. I watched a youtube video with a guy showing how to check the parallel port with a meter but all I can't get is 3.3 volts vs the 4.3 he was getting on all pins 2-9 on the pc. No high low swing nothing changes when I press the arrows to move the machine. Any ideas what I can do to get this board working properly?? Thanks!

Anyone? I am trying to get this thing going and it's driving me nuts!!

Hi,
I'm not familiar with your BOB. I get mine from Homan Designs in Austrailia, near enuf to local for me.
These BOB's have LEDs on the outputs and make diagnosis ALOT easier. While I have not used other BOB's other
well respected forum members have reported that other well made BOB's have the same feature.

For instance my X axis is pin 1 for direction and pin 2 for step. when I command, either part program or MDI, a
clockwise rotation the no.1 LED lights up. Even when the move is finished it will remain light until I command a
counterclockwise move, ie the direction  is persistant.
My stepper drives move on a positive going step signal and consequently have set the step pin as active high. When a move
is commanded the LED blinks between off and on, very commonly so fast that it appears to be intermediate brightness. When the
move is complete in returns to idle ie. LED off. Should your setup require active low then the step LED will light when idle.

Multimeters are a poor choice for this, they reflect an average and can be quite slow to respond. Of course you can only observe
one pin at a time whereas LED's offer observation of all pins at once. Additionally one slip of the probe and its very possible even
likely that one or more of the outputs is toast.

I would recommend such a BOB. there are some very good ones out there, any forum search should catch a few recommendations.
The very cheap ones are an excerise in frustration.

Craig