Hey folks, I'm trying to get a 2nd parallel port installed to work with Mach 3 and the C23 board I have installed.  I was having trouble with the smoothstepper so, I decided to go this route instead.

I'm using the Rosewill card (which is the one that works according to our board), which has a 9835 chipset.  This card has two parallel ports.  I've downloaded the driver, installed fine, and it is being shown in the device manager as LPT2 and LPT3.  The addresses are:

LPT2
C400
C000

LPT3
CC00
C800

Onboard LTP1
0378
0778

I can get the LPT 3 to appear just fine as port 1 within Mach using CC00.  I can't get anything to work for port 2, even the onboard LTP1.  I know that port does work though, as it was with the smooth stepper.  Now that I'm trying to use parallel ports on a desktop machine, instead of the smooth stepper on my laptop, I'm running into this problem.  Any ideas?  I'm at my wits end here.  I built this PC just for this purpose!

Barry

Not sure I understand this part

I know that port does work though, as it was with the smooth stepper.

The SS doesnt use a parallel port.

What are you trying to set up on Port2 and which pins?

Hood

Yes, I know the SS is USB.  Originally I was using the SS with a USB port;)

I stopped because it would lose connection after a couple hours.  I'm attempting to use parallel ports instead.  I'm attempting to use the exact same setup, except with parallel ports, same pins, etc.  It's not a pin assignment issue, as this WILL work with the smooth stepper.  The issue, is that a 2nd parallel port isn't seen inside Mach3, no matter the port addresses I'm giving it.

Barry

What pins are you trying to use and for what (inputs or outputs)
Hood

is it me or are those address ranges weird? shouldn't all range over a few bytes and be ascending. These ranges are massive (interestingly they're all 0x400 byte ranges!) and lpt2 and 3 are descending... for example I'd expect 0x378 to 0x37F for your LPT1.

Those numbers aren't ranges.  They are the first address in a range. Each parallel port had two ranges listed in the device manager.  The first number in the range is what you put in Mach, so that's all I listed. Sorry for the confusion. An interesting result is originally I bought the ss to work on a laptop, which I have gotten it to work perfectly there. I can mill all day and then some.  The trouble I'm having in on a desktop, which is so strange to me. Anyway, I've spent so much time on this issue, I think I'm going to just upgrade to another laptop and retire this one to the shop, to run Mach.  It seems overkill, but I know this combo works.

Barry