Thanks.  I did some more Gooogle searches and found some more information. 

Vince

Anything happening, I'm ready to buy one now though it seems to have been very quiet for a couple of months

Graham

Hi Graham:

  All the talk has been on its wesite at www.warp9td.com , just about ready to go onsale I think..

ARt

Just knoxing the dust off this one to see how things are going.

I_just_got_my_Smoothstepper_and_had_some_set_up_problems_between_mach3_and_the_smoothstepper_but_my_question_
now_is_what_do_I_set_Mach3_freq_to_now_or_does_it_bypass_the_freq_settings_in_Mach?
Do_I_use_25khz_or_do_I_keep_moving_it_up_until_there_is_missing_steps?
I_have_used_the_45khz_on_the_LPT1_port_before_the_smoothstepper_before_but_now_with_the_smoothstepper_
connected_I_dont_know_what_setting_to_use..
Thanks
GaryV

Just set the Kernel to 25KHz, the SmoothStepper doesnt use the Kernel speed so it doesnt matter.
  One thing however is in the  Beta testing we found that if the Kernel was set higher than 25KHz the feedrate would be reported wrongly in the DRO, It would be doing the correct feedrate just the DRO reported wrong. Setting the Kernel to 25KHz put things back to normal.
 I am not sure if this is still the case as I have never put the kernel back up to see.
Hood

Hi guys,

FYI - I have just installed a SS on one of our systems, and the Mach kernel speed does have to be set to 25KHz.  Otherwise, the DRO does not display the correct speed. 

OK I'm going to ask a real newbie type question here. I'm building a CNC miller and have a Lap top with USB's or I can knock up a PC with the bits I've got to run it with a Parallel ports. What are the advantages in having a smoothstepper rather than going straight from a Parallel port?  I'm really hoping not to offend anyone with this question but I'm guessing there is a lot more to it than just a Parallel port replacer. My second question is will it have enough I/O to run a 5 or 6 Axis mill ? I'm only building it with 3 axis to start with but would like to expand in the future. Thanks.
Ps how come the spell checker doesn't know what a CNC is ?

Hi Perfo,

You would think that the spell checker on a CNC forum would be set up for that acronym! 

Anyway, I have assembled and tested several machines with Mach, and it works pretty good most of the time, but every now and then I will have a "fussy" machine.  These are stepper machines with no feedback encoder - completely open loop.  I have tried several things to attempt to fix the problem (grounding, shielding, settings, mechanical changes, etc.) to no avail.  The problem seems to be the Windows operating system.  The reason I say this is because we have seen an improvement in our machines by changing Windows XP to standard PC mode, and making other changes that seemed to improve the consistency in operation of the CNC equipment.  Even though we use the same PC model from the same manufacturer, and everything is set up exactly the same from one machine to the next, we will still have an occasional issue with some of the CNC's missing pulses.  The point I am making here is that Mach (via the 25 pin parallel port) does work nicely most of the time, but every now and then you will get a fussy PC or Windows system that will not cooperate properly.

The Smooth Stepper takes the "Windows" issues out of the equation when sending pulses to your motor drives.  When you use Mach with the parallel port, it essentially turns your PC's processor into a pulsing engine, sending the pulses out to your machine to control motion.  This creates a major load on your processor, and other things on your PC.  This is why you should designate a PC with Mach only, when using it to run a machine.  When you use  the Smooth Stepper, Mach sends "trajectory information" to the Smooth Stepper, which then generates the pulses and sends them to the machine through its own processor (in a nutshell).  This eliminates any Windows issues when running Mach, but still lets you use Mach's nice interface to control your machine.

I am testing a Smooth Stepper now, and working on tweaking it in.  So far, I am impressed with the smoothness, compared to coming out of the parallel port.  The homing sequence is a little different, and there are some timing delays for program pause, etc. but consistency is most important to me.  You can also run a G-code program, and actually do things in Windows, and the machine will keep running!  If you used Mach before, you would understand what a positive change that is.  I will keep posting on my results.

Thanks for the reply. Decisions decisions I have enough bits and pieces to knock up a 2 port PC that I could dedicate to Mach but is only just over the recommend processor speed and thus would run flat out though I could tweak it and put XP on it etc. Or I have a lap to which is the latest speediest without LPT's which I could do all the CAD work on as well as generate G-code and run Mach but this is a Vista machine and won't be dedicated though it will only be running Mach when I'm machining. Now a smoothstepper that has an RJ45 interface would be the best solution as this would also enable me to use any PC on my network (password interlocked) and could keep it well away from the dirty bits.. Will smoothstepper do 5 axis ?