Sorry, I was rushing to get it posted before bed
My Controller board is one of these,with the dynamo motors he sells.
http://www.stepperworld.com/fet3.htm#FET4targetIT connects over the printer port.
Here's the process I followed to get to my current position.(Sorry it's long winded, hopefully it'll bring us up to speed)
Built a baby $100 router, installed electronics & motors got them working and moving over parallel port with supplied testing software from electronics vendor (stepper world).
Installed mach 3, got it working and cutting virtually.
Purchased copy of Mach 3.
Had "no motor movement issue" (just like now), tried to diagnose with website help (from here), didn't' work.
One of the guys offered to call me and walk me through fixing it, and it started working after the first or second thing he tried (Thanks again Chip!).
I sat amazed at how quickly it was fixed, watching it twitch and whir.
It was now cutting, real shapes out of wood, but because I used cheap all thread and nuts, I had tons of problem getting it to run smoothly.
About this time the the parts started arriving for "the big router" that used real 5 start acme screws & anti backlash nuts, so I stopped working on the little one.
Started building "the Big one".
Alas thrust washers are totally on back order! Doh!
Winter is over before they arrive, no time to finish.
Frame with no motion installed sits in garage staring sullenly at me for months on end.
After a long hiatus, I finally got back and finished "the big router" that uses the same electronics and motors as the little one, except with a 4th axis used to double the x.
I got the electronics all wired up and got it working with the supplied testing software from
www.stepperworld.com. I had motion on all 4 axis' in both directions.
Running all software on the same computer I had working from before.
I then loaded my old Mach 3 xml file, set the ports and pins for the 4th axis and the the limit switches and expected to be finished.
All Limit switched currently set to inactive to simplify debugging.
Started it carving the roadrunner with the z to high to cut, and got nothing... not a twitch.
The motors all work over the same parallel port using the simple testing software, so it's clearly something that I've failed to do properly in setting up Mach 3.
My reset has to be toggled each time I start mach 3 and I do this before loading a G-code file.
Mach 3 behaves as if it is cutting, I can see the movement on the position monitors and watch the cut path being followed.
My machine has crappy scores in Drivertest.exe but Chip said it just means the router will slow down and speed up with mouse movement and I can put off replacing the Box till later.
On the diagnosis screen I have numbers for pulse frequency, though they bounce all over the place 4- 5 digits.
I loaded the diagnostics, or trouble shooting screen, and watched the Parallel port Pins indicator 'lights' to see if Mach 3 thought it was sending data over the parallel port. No lights are flashing.
Mach 3 is set up on the same port that the StepperWorld.com software is functioning correctly over.(0x378)
Any help or hints are greatly appreciated.
Caladin-