Hi everybody,

Thank you for your input. Before spending the money on a UC300ETH I though its worth to give it one more try. You were mentioning that Win7 32 bit will work with PCI parallel cards and it happen to have a licence from an old laptop that I've upgraded and died few years ago. So I've installed a second hard drive and Windows 7 32bit. After a long struggle with the PCI card that was disappearing from Device manager but was back if I was moving it in a different PCI slot, after installing SP1 things got better. I've measured the directional pin for all axes and was giving me 5V and 0V. I've connected the G540 box and one motor to test it but when I've tried to move the motor I could hear just one "click" no meter what direction I was trying to move. I've connected a different motor and ... same thing. First I though it is something wrong with G540 and I start searching in their forum about motors not moving but making a sound. Nothing! Finally I thought I should check the parallel port again, this time for the motion pin and ... nothing. No matter which way I was trying to move same result: 0V. I'm guessing it is something about the parallel card ECP and EPP mode. I've seen people on the forum solving this problem changing to EPP mode but my BIOS has nothing about the parallel port as the computer did not come with it. I have no idea in which mode is my card and how can I change it. Have you seen anything like this before? I'm keep digging. I'm not done until its done!

Hi,
OK, you are making some progress. You might consider Windows 7 32 bit a backward step....but in fact you are moving into the zone where a parallel port will
work...it rather dates the technology.

Lets consider the evidence you have at the moment.

First you have got the direction pins working. Does that not tell you that the parallel port is outputting something? I mean if its producing direction signals
surely it could also produce step signals, they are just outputs after all.

There are a couple of things that you can try. Given that step signals will turn on and off rapidly I would expect to see a voltage of something like 2.5V
(half of 5V) when step signals are being issued. If you do not see that sort of voltage then either the parallel port is faulty, but we have already discounted that
so then it probably means Mach is not producing the signals at all.

When you are testing your motors how are you doing it...by jogging or by MDI? I would recommend MDI.

The other thing you need to check is to make sure the G540 is being enabled, I'm not sure whether it has a constant Enable signal or whether it relies on
a charge pump. Either way make sure that the 540 is enabled.

One other thing you should do is hook up an Estop switch. Not only do you need it for safety purposes but it would also prove whether the switch/540 and
parallel port can signal back to Mach. It would give you more (hard) evidence that the port is working or conversely that it is not.

Craig

The situation remains.....no one has said definitely that Windows 10 32 bit will or will not work with a PP.

My understanding has been that you can't use the parallel port in Windows 8 or Windows 10. I believe this info came directly from Art.

I have a Geckodrive G540 and I have just finished my control box. It looks like I will have to redo it if I use UC300ETH-5LPT combination but not if I use UC100. I've seen that UC300EHT-5LPT gives you more inputs and outputs plus analog inputs and outputs and you can connected it direct to a PC or via a router or switch. For only $44 extra its worth the money. What I cannot find is if it works only with its own network or you can connected to your home network so you can control it from any PC.

You should be able to plug the G540 directly into a UC300ETH with a ribbon cable. (Port 2 or port 3 on the UC300ETH.)

I believe that you can run the UC300ETH on a network, but it's more complicated, and you need to know what you are doing. I recommend running it direct, with it's own network connection. I use a $15 PCI network card to connect it.

And I agree that it's well worth the extra money over the UC100, as it gives you a lot more options for more features.

Since the UC300ETH will work with both Mach3 and Mach4, as well as UCCNC from CNC Drive, I'd recommend trying all 3 to see which you like best (and which works best for you).

Hi ger21,

Thank you for your input. You have helped me before, without knowing, when I was building my first CNC, a JoeCNC, back in 2008-2009. Now, I'm trying an upgrade to all aluminum with ball bearing screws and linear bearings and of course, a better computer. Before finishing the wiring of the motors and limit switches I've tried my old setup on the new computer when I've run into these problems. I've learned a lot in this process. One of them is that ECP and EPP are both using pins 2 to 9 for data output and this is what I am using for the motors. I don't know how changing to EPP helped somebody to solve a similar problem, but it shouldn't. I've checked again the 2 to 9 pins, one by one, with Patrick Hood-Daniel method, and everything was fine. I've just push the SHIFT button when I was jogging and the motors are spinning. Windows 7 32bit with PCI parallel cards works. I will eventually upgrade to UC300ETH with 5LPT, but now I am at the end of a long journey and hobby money are almost gone. I just want to see the machine working for now.