No breakout board as yet,
I have another posting about some schematics for those, I saw and copied somewhere but cannot find them again as I need a better copy than those I saved. As for the wiring it actually comes from a centronics type connector since I have plenty of old printer leads to play with so using what is to hand but the pins are correct relative to the DB25 connector. I think I may have found the answer though while searching for something similar. It was a series of postings a couple of weeks ago coincerning a similar problem with a Taig Mill. It started me thinking that maybe I had done something silly which on investigation it seems I have. I was using pins 4,6,8 for step and 5,7,9 for direction but on looking more carefully at my own pin out listing I have sort of got step and direction the wrong way round with directions being 4,6,8 and step should be 5,7,9. I think I got confused as I have direction before step on my chart. I have just reset the pin numbers ready for another try in the morning.
Although I may have sorted that out I was still having trouble setting up motor speeds and steps so a pointer or two in the direction in the manual would be very helpful. At the moment though all I want to do is get the thing moving in the right directions and fancy stuff such as making actually machine something can wait until I am familiar with the software and writing something in G code.
John