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Re: More noob questions i'm afraid
« Reply #10 on: May 09, 2008, 08:09:21 AM »
Also if you have a voltmeter disconnect your parallel cable from the breakout board end and put the meter between ground and each of the Dir pins. Jog each axis and see that the pins go between 5V and 0V when you swap direction. You can also do similar with the Step pins but you will need to set the meter to milli volts range, as you Jog you will see a voltage, the actual voltage is unimportant and it will depend on what speed your rapids are set to. As I said its unim[portant as all you are looking for is a reading when joigginbg and nothing when sitting still. If you have a scope it would be better as you could actuallly look at the pulses but you may not have oone.
Hood

Hi Hood,

I think we may be getting close to the source of the problem. I checked all the step and dir pins, these are the results - X(2,3) and Y(4,5) pins ok, pin 6 no voltage change, pin 7 ok, pin 8 no voltage change and pin 9 has a constant voltage. So are the problems within the parallel cable and or port somewhere?

I'll check the actual port coming out of the back of the pc and see if the problem is between there and the driver board or inside the pc.

If i get this working you rock dude.
« Last Edit: May 09, 2008, 08:14:25 AM by paulie1982 »

Offline Hood

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Re: More noob questions i'm afraid
« Reply #11 on: May 09, 2008, 08:22:08 AM »
You will get it working, thats a guarantee, but how many hoops you have to jump through first is up for bets :D

Hood
Re: More noob questions i'm afraid
« Reply #12 on: May 09, 2008, 08:29:23 AM »
You will get it working, thats a guarantee, but how many hoops you have to jump through first is up for bets :D

Hood

Hopefully not too many more, i don't want to get pissed off with her, she'd be worth a few bob for scrap metal, i'll give her a week tops to get her sh*t together, after that its gonna be taig chainsaw massacre.

Offline Hood

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Re: More noob questions i'm afraid
« Reply #13 on: May 09, 2008, 09:26:16 AM »
No, you are on the home straight now, just got to find out if its the port or the cable. If its the cable thats easy, if its the port its still easy, just means you will have to get a PCI Parallel port. You could also invest in a SmoothStepper but that would be a bit more expensive.
Hood

Offline jimpinder

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Re: More noob questions i'm afraid
« Reply #14 on: May 10, 2008, 04:10:17 AM »
Just a quickie to see if everything is working ok - how about using the other output pins just to get the axis up and running. It would only take a few minutes - unless you already have something else connected to them. The other pins available are 1,14,16,17.
Not me driving the engine - I'm better looking.
Re: More noob questions i'm afraid
« Reply #15 on: May 10, 2008, 01:12:53 PM »
Afternoon fellas,

I finally have everything working, all the axes, however there is still one small issue, the Z axis only works in one direction. I've tried assigning the other pins to it but it still only goes in one direction, any ideas as to what else could be up?

Offline jimpinder

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Re: More noob questions i'm afraid
« Reply #16 on: May 10, 2008, 01:39:24 PM »
If you are saying that you are reversing the direction of movement of the Z axis, but it keeps going the same way (I assume you are using MDI commands however - not jogging). - then

If you are jogging - are you sure your jogging hot keys are properly assigned ( to Z++ and Z--) (I use page up and page down)

What pin is your "Dir" output on - either this changes - if which case your driver card is kna**kered -  or it doesn't change.

If it doesn't change - and you say you have tried all the available pins to output, then I am at a loss to suggest what is wrong. I can't see 5 pins all being faulty - and there is no other reason I can think of why it shouldn't change.
Not me driving the engine - I'm better looking.
Re: More noob questions i'm afraid
« Reply #17 on: May 11, 2008, 08:20:30 AM »
Fellas, i finally got it working,it was like the truman show, the problems were - the wiring inside the z axis motor was dodgy and loose, don't ask me how, the control board for the z axis was fried, again, i haven't got a clue, thankfully i had purchased a 5 axis control system but was only planning on using 4 so i had a spare, i'm now up and running, thanks a million for your help. Hopefully i'll post something in the look and tell thread in a couple of months.

Paulie