Hi everyone,

I am currently trying to retrofit an old Boxford 125tcl.
It came with the well known Chinese 5 axis break out board which is working fine for the steppers, but the input signals are giving me a headache.

I am powering the BoB by USB and the power LED comes on.
I have wired a standard E Stop button up, with one cable to GND on the BoB and one cable to Pin 10 as described in the documents that came with the board. I tested the wiring with my multimeter and the switch works fine.
But in Mach, nothing is recognised. I tried the automatic input dialog, i set up the port number and triggered the E-stop multiple times, but no signal is recognised.
I tried the other pins, no difference.
I tried using another board of the same type, no difference.
Lastly i tried to power the board via the 5 volt input, and the board works, but not the inputs.

Something i noticed is that there seems to be no power to come out of the inputs which would power the circuits.
Do you need to power the inputs via a second power supply.


The board i am using is identical to this one:
https://m.ebay.com/itm/MACH3-5-Axis-CNC-Breakout-Interface-Board-for-Stepper-Motor-Driver-CNC-Mill-/271059157869#vi__app-cvip-panel

Anyone got any suggestions?

Thank you, a happy new year and best regards,

Jon

I'm not sure but don't these boards need an external 12v supply to activate the inputs/relay???

I'm not sure but don't these boards need an external 12v supply to activate the inputs/relay???

As Dave has said you need a 12V to 24V power source connected to the board to enable the Inputs and non-step/direction Outputs to work correctly.

Tweakie.

Just wondering and maybe all the BoB's are the different.  Why the USB port on the board (and Parallel port also) to supply voltage or what?

Quote

I'm not sure but don't these boards need an external 12v supply to activate the inputs/relay???

As Dave has said you need a 12V to 24V power source connected to the board to enable the Inputs and non-step/direction Outputs to work correctly.

Tweakie.

That's right, it turned out to need a 24 Volt input in order for the optocouplers to work!

Thanks a lot