Have a good machine but bad software. Manufacture is out of business. Would like to get the machine running if possible. The machine was a 9pin serial port with 5 wires into the cabinet. All the software that I can find runs off the parallel port. I have downloaded Mach2 but even with a breakout board can not figure out the correct connections to get the computer and the mill to talk to each other. Not being a technology gifted person, need all the help I can get. Have no schematics for the mill. Help please in simple terminology. Thanks NoTech

hi,

I have a conect lathe on the way, did you ever manage to interface your router to mach? are the drives for the steppers salvagable?

The answer to "is it running" is NO! I have tried about all of the free software and breakout boards that I can stand and no luck. The servos and other electrical components are ok. This router is in a school shop and the money to pullout all the electronics and start over again is not available. The machine was running fine and just quit (no smoke!) the teacher prior to me did not make a backup copy of the software and what was in the machine was corrupted. I got the machine up and running for one school year (luck and some knowledge of dos) and started the search for software which would be easy for the students to use and make the machine more capable. At this time I have about given up.
I need some schematics or other help. There were none for the machine so it has been guess and guess again. It was connected to the serial port and most of the software is parallel port. Would like to at least get one axis to move. Would someone who understands the restraints of a school budget care to share or offer advice?

If you can find out if the drives accept step and direction signals, you should be able to rewire it them to a breakout board.

Assuming your electronics is similar to mine, you will need to change some parts over, as the controller is obsolete, and the stepper drives are integrated into the controller.

You will need to replace the stepper drives with something that can be hooked to a parallel breakout. If you are in a school do you have pcb production facilities? Picstep boards should do the job driving the thing, then all you would need is a parallel breakout. If you want absolute bottom dollar, you could recycle the parts from the conect cnc stepper drives, and just make new pcbs. L6203/l297 based stepper drive designs are freely available. The benefit of picstep is that it supports microstepping, which gives you the potential of higher positional accuracy.

Can you post a photograph of the pcbs in your router, or check my conect lathe thread and see if your boards look similar.

The drive motors are Astrosyn L series standard performance. (L163 stepper) 1.8 step, 5 volt, 1 amp. I have no pcb facilities at school.I do appreciate your interest in helping. Will see if I can get a digital pic of the electronics. Thanks My background is not in electronics. Construction, woodworking, old cars more my speed.

We've been gifted one of these with an accompanying lap top that is supposed to have all the software to drive the router on it.

Has anyone got any idea what the software might be called?

Has anyone got any instructions for operating the router?

Many thanks

Christine