I just purchased the ESS. Where are you guys mounting your boards?

In the computer itself? CNC control cabinet? Or just laying out in the middle of both computer and CNC cabinet?

Hi,

All of the above.

• Depends on what you are after. If you already have a cnc controller and  have a new PC and the smoothstepper is to cater for the lack of a parallel port, them put it in the computer.
• If you are building a new controller and want the convenience of just an Ethernet cable between the PC and the controller, put it in the controller
• If you want it to be portable and moved between various configurations, put it in it's own stand alone box.

This is how I mounted an ESS in my latest conversion, 3rd image down


http://homanndesigns.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=66:selective-soldering-robot-conversion-to-mach3-and-smooth-stepper-part-3&catid=34:cnc-projects&Itemid=55



Full project writeup is here;
http://homanndesigns.com/index.php?view=category&id=34%3Acnc-projects&option=com_content&Itemid=55
Cheers,



Peter

If I mount it between the two... do I ground it somewhere?

Thanks for quick reply!

Looking at this again...

I see I have to provide a 5v power source.... don't have a clue in how to do that? Can I grab something from inside the computer?

I see you have 3 ribbon cables attached to smoothstepper. I see no documentation on where these go or how to hook them up?

I currently have 2 parallel port cables going from my computer to CNC cabinet. Am I still using these Parallel port cables?

I'm so confused. Sorry for being a dumba$$.

I have none of those ribbon cables. Do I need to purchase 3 of those?

Yup, you can pull the 5 volts from one of your connectors in the PC, just make sure it is 5 volts.  You can google your power supply and find a pin out probably. I wont say the color of wire as I might be wrong.  The 2 parallell ports will still go to your controller.  I'd mount it in the bottom of the pc and use two of these in place of the PCs parallel ports.

http://www.pmdx.com/DB25Ribbon

You can get them with the plates too, not sure if those in the link do or not.  They will fit in the pack of your PC where you would srew the plate of an add on card.

Brett

ok, I think I have everything covered except the third ribbon cable... as seen in Homann's pic... directly to the left of the ethernet cable. (#2, #3 ribbon cables are for the parallel ports)

Here's a better picture. Ribbon #1... don't know what that's for?

Just think of it this way, the SS is simply a replacement for your parallel ports.  It has some added benefits too though.  You have as much IO as 3 parallel ports would give you (Mach only supports 2) and you will be lowering the work load on your PC.  How you hook it up is entirely up to you.  It just needs 5V and a ethernet or usb connection.

Brett