My control which I am trying to replace with MACH3 only uses 3 pins on the printer port 2,3,and7.  Will MACH3 work with this setup?
Thanks,
Dave

Not unless it is a single motor setup. Any info about the control and machine its operating?

Hood

It is a 3 motor mill,Trionics Handyman.  It is a 1988 era mill with Centroid electronics and MAE hybrid stepper motors?
My Centroid electronics contain 1 board labeled   CPU3 REV 870830, one labeled HE 512C00604-001 Rev A, and three labeled Flux Capacitor Drive Rev 870312.
  The motors are MAE  HY  200-3450-700, which they appear to make something similar still today.
All of this is controlled with the input controls next to the display via 3 wires.
Thanks,
Dave

Afraid there is no way that Mach can control that from 3 wires. With it being steppers there is a good chance that you could interface it to Mach relatively easily but may need a fair bit of rewiring.
Hood

shootrock,

Whats wrong with the Centroid control? It usually runs on Linux.

Ed

The CRT is out and they don't make a replacement,it is powered by Centroid ,but adapted to Trionics panel. It also uses a DRO from scales to check its movement.
Thanks,
Dave

I'm beating a dead subject here, but I thought I'd clarify this post for posterity and other folks... that 25-pin port with 3,5&7 is a serial port, not a parallel port. The centroid control is a CNC3... 1200 7E1 I believe... the Tri-onics DRO and control up top is just a "user-friendly" interface for conversational programming that literally screen scrapes the centroid below. The centroid speaks G-code natively.

You cannot interface Mach to the centroid (the centroid is a cnc controller itself), but you can drip feed it using other software if necessary... Mach CAN interface with the stepper drives inside, though they are the noisiest full-step drivers on the planet and you may as well throw them out and get geckos.