I have been using Mach3 for a couple of weeks and things are just great. Something new has some up though and I was hoping that someone here might have some advice.

The PC I've been running Mach3 from can't really be the final sollution. I have access to a really nice laptop that would be great, except of course, it doesn't have a parallel port. I have a usb to parallel adapter that may be part of the solution, but it has a centronics type end and will need an adapter. I was wondering if anyone has any experience with this sort of thing. I know that these types of adapters often don't work for specific things. I have also found some PCMCIA parallel adapters but they're a bit pricey. I don't want to buy one as an experiment.

Any help would be really appreciated!

Thanks,

Greg

Found this:
http://www.routoutcnc.com/dragon.htm
dont know if this would help you as it has a usb port

Greg they work but no that well... I had one running and it would jog the motor but when you ran code it would not run right.

Thanks for the input. Barker, which device were you trying? USB to Parallel or PCMCIA. My understanding is that PCMCIA cards work much better. Apparently the card bus is tied much more closely to the motherboard.

Thanks,

Greg

I used the PCMCIA card the sort-of worked...

I have a similar problem, has anyone tested to see the voltage coming out of the pins through the USB-Parallel cable converter?  It just seems intuitive that the controller works off a 5Vdc pulse.  If it's getting less than 5 Vdc then naturaly it would ot work right.  Is there a Vdc booster out there?

The USB converter will not work because of how it is hooked into the computer.. there needs to be a connection to the bus Not just a buffered serial communication...

According to Quatech, the card puts out 5 volts. I didn't actually test this but I suspect it's true. I think Barker is probably right, the problem lies in how the port really functions. The fact that a DMA can't be assigned is a serious problem here. It would mean that memory management would always suffer through the card's port.

Greg