Hi Guys, My Name is Ron From Australia and am having problems getting my steppers moving. I had problem previously with a add on parallel port card that Hood helped me out with, Thanks Hood. Now have a new mother board with a built on parallel port and have configured the port and the pins step and Dir as per the mach 3 manual. I have a mechtronics 4 axis breakout board (www.easy-cnc.com for the manual)and 4 japan servo hybrid steppers which i wish to put on a plasma cutter. I have configured the pins and direction for the motors and configured for mach driver test and all seems to be working ok there. I have learnt to read and write g code over the last month and simulating it on Mach 3 with great success but have had nothing to do with the nuts of cnc setup. I am a toolmaker by trade with little electronics knowledge. When the power is turned on the motors briefly pulse and that is all I can get out of them. They get really hot after about an hour of testing. I have set the on board current set up to the the 1.8A for the motors as per there spec sheet. I have set the steps on the motor tuning to 2000.

I do not get any signal on the port 1 pins state. Pulse freq is about 33500 with kernel speed of 35000

Port is 378 as per the get port address function Hood put me on to and motor outputs are as per the mechtronics manual.

I am obviously missing something or have not checked or unchecked a box somewhere.

Does anyone have any Ideas to get me started? Thanks Guys.

I have done some testing and found that i am geting 4.8v on pin 2 an 0 on pin 3 and 2.2v on pins 4,5,6,7,8,9 whilst the system is running.

Please answer this when all your power is on do your motor spindles lock up or are they easiy turned .

Hi Woffler, thanks for the reply. the motors are locked up when the power is on and free to turn when the power is off

Hi, Tinyron

Re-Check that your settings are exactly as Pic 1, Including Step Port's & Dir Port's, Also set to "1".

Next, Try Pic 2, Sherline 1/2 Step Mode.

If it still doesn't work, Check in Device Manager settings per pic 3.

Chip

Thanks Chip, I went through the screens you sent but nothing seemed to work. All settings were as you had described except for the sherline half step that did nothing so left it as it was. There has to be something that I have missed somewhere. I have been through all the documentation again  and there is something i am overlooking.
Thanks again Chip. Where are you from?

Hi, Tinyron

Gainesville, Florida, Where are you, Re-Read your post. Get "Skype" and give me a Call some time.

Guess I need to get my Globe out, You must be in the south, Thought you Guy's were nearer to the Equator.

Try this little program for testing, Hera's a Link, http://www.geekhideout.com/

Chip

Geelong, Victoria, Australia. Bet the weather is better than here at the moment. 9deg C and wet and windy.

Hi, Tinyron

Try setting your Low Actives to "Checked", Are you sure your Parallel Cable is a known good one, Sometimes the Port or Cable Mfr's leave out allot of Gnd pin connection's.

I read back through your other post's, Were you ever able to get Mach running on the other Computer. ?

Post your Mach3Mill.xml File or the Profile your loading/using, It's in C:\Mach3 Folder, Should be the newest xml in the folder.

Chip

Hi Ron,
 can you test direct on the Port that if you connect a volt meter between  a Dir pin and Gnd then jog one way or the other the voltage changes 0 to 5v and vice versa. Do that on all Dir pins.
 Hood