Hi, I've just bought a second hand taig micro mill 2000 with a microproto stepper controller and I'm currently trying to set up Mach3 to run it. I downloaded the XML available from this site specifically for my setup and after a lot of messing around with parallel port configurations I'm now almost there.

The final issue I appear to have is that the pin numbers change during operation. When I first fire up Mach3 every thing works fine and I can jog the axis or run a program ok. Shortly after startup, anything from 30 seconds to 3 minutes, one or more of the axis will suddenly stop functioning. This primerrily effects the x axis but has also occurred occasionally on both y and z as well.

After a lot of head scratching and cups of tea I have tracked the issue down to Pin numbers being changed randomly whilst using the software. When I first start Mach3 I check the pin assignments are as set in the XML and everything works fine. Once the issue occurs if I go back into the pin and port settings I can see that the step pin number assigned to the effected axis has been changed to something different to that originally configured.  If I then change the pin back to what it should be it fires back into life.... Until the same thing happens again a few minutes later.

I would like to get this sorted before shelling out for a license so would appreciate anyone's help.

PS. I have seen someone else had a similar issue but there was no response on the forum.

http://www.machsupport.com/forum/index.php/topic,4197.0.html

this is a teaser, what do you have running on the host computer, what os, what programs?

Can you attach your current cml please.
Hood

I'm using an xp laptop which I've just rebuilt so apart from Mach 3 the only other thing it's running is FreeMill (which isn't a lot of use as you can't seem to set max cutting step depth). I also have the joypad plugin installed and running.

I do have 2 versions of Mach 3 installed as the mill came with a copy of an older version but only running with the latest one I just downloaded. Could this cause an issue? Hummhhh.

Not with the computure at the moment but will post the XML as soon as I get a chance tomorrow.

Thanks for the quick response guys!

it's possible that the other mach is causing the trouble, try renaming the older mach directory and it's xml

Well I removed both versions of Mach 3 and re-installed the latest one and all seems to work fine!

Thought I'd better close the thread out!

Cheers for the help.