Hi guys(Girls?),

Recently bought a Pokeys 56U cards with 3 Postep 25-32 cards to convert my Proxxon MF70 mini mill to CNC, plan to use it with Mach3 (for now free version).

I am new to the world of CNC and after reading through many posts here and on CNCzone, I decided to go with the USOVO conversion kit (no do not want to use uni1500 card with printer cable) and use Pokeys(USB) to drive it.

Now the last couple of weeks I have been reading through all the documentation on Pokeys pulse engine and PoStep (multiple times actually), so I'm aware of what the documentation says, don't understand it all yet, but that will come.
I am not an electrician and have very basic knowledge of it all.
Read up on what a pull up resistor is for and what a safety charge pump is supposed tot do!

But...
I have a couple of questions I need answered, in order for me to hook up the PoStep boards to my Pokeys 56U card correctly.

1: In the PoStep manual the 10 pins on the postep board are explained. Correct me if I'm wrong pin 3 on the 10 pin connecctor of the postep board is connected to pin 38 (x-axis) on the Pokeys card.
    Pin 5 (PoStep) is connected to pin 46 (Pokeys) for the X-axis again.
    But were do I connect pin 1(PoStep) to?
    And where do I connect pin 7 (Postep) to?
    As for pins 2,4,6,8,10 (GND) do I need to connect these to the GND pins on the Pokeys 56U, and does it matter which one?

2. Wtih respect to the pull up resistor circuit (3.3V) for pins 48 and 49 (Pokeys 56U), do I need to connect these using a star topology (same as with the power from the PoPower 24-100) as well?

3. in the pokeys pulse engine documentation for the for the limit/home switches, I need to use a pull up circuit as well.
    Do I need to use the 3.3V pin for that or do I need to use the 5V pin for this? It isn't clear to me in the documentation on it.

4. Pin 53 (PoKeys) is the safety charge pump output, but where do I need to connect this to? PoStep??

5. What is the recommendation on which "thickness" of wires (thicker means less resistance, right?), I need to use to connect the PoKeys to the PoStep card. Can I use regular 10 leads flatcable in combination with female 10 pin connector?

Hope someone/anyone (NeoTo/Matevž?) can help me with these questions.
A detailed drawing of what goes where would be even better!!  

Greetz,

Tom

Hi, Tom

Currently, I am not in the office, so this will be a short answer.

1. Enable pin: connect this to GND, pin 7 is for error signalling purposes - you can either leave it unconnected or connect it to one of the pins and use your own logic in Mach3 to read it. All GND pins are connected, so it doesn't matter which one you use.
2/3. All pull up resistors can be made to 3.3 or 5 V (but to no more than 5 V).
4. Charge pump output is for boards that need/use it. You don't connect this one if simple direct connection to PoStep boards is used.
5. As all these wires are signalling wires, no special thickness is required. Keep the wires short and 'out of sight' of switched power lines. Regular flat cable in combination with 10 pin header connector is fine.

Regards,
Matevž

Matevz,

Thanks for the speedy reply!
This is going to help me a lot!
I'm going try to bring the X-axis to life this evening!

Greetz,

Tom