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Author Topic: IRQs / Interrupts on motherboard for parallel ports  (Read 6141 times)

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IRQs / Interrupts on motherboard for parallel ports
« on: May 18, 2006, 09:01:22 AM »
Howdy.

I am setting up a PC for a Mach machine.  It is for one of my engineering friends (he's the CNC guy, I'm the PC guy).

Does Mach require that the parallel ports have their own interrupt / IRQ?  I read the manual and understand about the I/O addressing, but there is no mention of IRQs.  Maybe I'm just thinking to deep into the old days of important functions like this re
Re: IRQs / Interrupts on motherboard for parallel ports
« Reply #1 on: May 18, 2006, 09:30:54 AM »
(fat finger disease...)

...like this requiring IRQs.

I'm using SIIG add-in cards:

http://siig.com/product.asp?catid=97&pid=150 (mine are a slightly older version)

Windows XP has both add-in cards (LPT2 and LPT3), as well as the onboard LPT1, set to "Never use an interrupt" in Port Settings.  Is this the correct setting?  Any other settings in here I should know about, or are the defaults generally just fine?  Any motherboard things I should do, like setting specific PCI slots to specific IRQs (always a fun game with XP and modern HALs)?


Two more questions:

1.  Can Mach use 3 parallel ports? The two SIIG PCI cards in addition to the onboard parallel port?  My engineer friend is the type to want more more more  :-)  Not a "must have," just curious.  The manual never expressly states a max.

2.  If it is only 2 parallel ports max, can I set Mach II to use JUST the 2 add-in cards and not the onboard LPT1 at all?  Does the Mach III manual page 5-2 say all there is to say on this subject?    I want to do this in case of accidents so the motherboard is less likely to get nuked.  I am aware of outboard opto-isolator circuits and we're definitely considering them, but just in case.  Also for consistency I'd like the whole thing to go through the same chips. 


I really hope I'm not asking bone-headed questions.  I'm a not-so-hot PC guy with almost zero CNC experience, I've never used your software, and have only read the manual (and a few dozen forum posts) while trying to prepare this PC for my friend.  He's generally brilliant .... just not with PCs!  What a pair we make trying to convert an old Ah-ha milling setup to something more modern.  He's already purchased your product.

Thanks in advance,
Patrick
Re: IRQs / Interrupts on motherboard for parallel ports
« Reply #2 on: May 18, 2006, 01:27:32 PM »
I have a dual port SIIG card that I use for my machine, I don't have IRQ's assigned to any of the lpt ports, But windows does assign a 'odd' io address that can't be changed, in my case 0xffa8 but I plug that into mach3 and it works fine.. Mach3 doesn't handle 3 lpt ports that I am aware of.

Re: IRQs / Interrupts on motherboard for parallel ports
« Reply #3 on: May 18, 2006, 01:31:17 PM »
"If it is only 2 parallel ports max, can I set Mach II to use JUST the 2 add-in cards and not the onboard LPT1 at all?  Does the Mach III manual page 5-2 say all there is to say on this subject?"

Yes, just set the port one io to one of the SIIG cards and port 2 to the other io. In my case (Single card dual port) 0xffa0 & 0xffb8
and I use 0x387 for a printer. If can find the IO range assigned to the port under control panel, system, lptX, resource tab.

Bryan
Re: IRQs / Interrupts on motherboard for parallel ports
« Reply #4 on: May 18, 2006, 03:44:30 PM »
Thanks!  I had a feeling I was over-thinking it.