I have an old Sherline CNC mill with a stepper motor controller box made by "Backtrack Manufacturing". I don't have the software that came with the controller to run Gcode. The controller box has 4 inputs from the parallel port that drive 4 fets to the stepper motor coils for each axis. The control box will drive 3-axis. What I need is software like Mach3 that will take gcode and control the stepper control box.

From what I've read Mach3 will send out a direction and step signal to each axis for control and will not work with this control box.

Does anyone know of software that will perform the function I'm looking for? Or maybe the software that came with the control box?

I have borrowed this setup from a friend with the intention of getting my feet wet in the world of maching and CNC maching so any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

Hi,

The only info I can find on backtrack manufacturing is a few dead links and references to sherline. http://www.btcnc.com/ It doesn't work, maybe its temporary? Have you thought about a new controller. HobbyCNC sells a nice controller for <100 dollars. New software can cost more.

Chuck

Sorry for the double post but here's an even cheaper solution for the more adventurous sort. http://www.doctronics.co.uk/4017.htm
Decade counters can output in sequence from 0 to 4 from a step signal. I don't think it can count backwards for the direction signal tho. Synchronous counters can, I'll see if I can find one.

Yes I have thought about a new controller but don't want to buy one if I don't have to. I was hoping software was available that would control the control box so no $ would be needed. EMC maybe?

It is open source, so maybe. But I have no experience with it. This might be what your looking for in emc http://wiki.linuxcnc.org/cgi-bin/emcinfo.pl?Stepgen
it only supports 8 outputs though. You need 12?

It is open source, so maybe. But I have no experience with it. This might be what your looking for in emc http://wiki.linuxcnc.org/cgi-bin/emcinfo.pl?Stepgen
it only supports 8 outputs though. You need 12?

Excellent find! I read it as supporting 8 outputs (channels). So that would mean the software could control 8 stepper motors for instance. Looks like EMC will do what I'm looking for. Now I have to figure out how to implement it or find an example of it being done already. Type 7 or type 8 might be what I'm looking for.

Thanks!

Glad to help. Good luck!

The machine is now controlled by EMC2. I'm now able to jog the x, y, and z axis.

I started with the "stepper-xyza" configuration and modified the "standard_pinout.hal" and "stepper_xyza.hal". I set "loadrt stepgen step_type=6,6,6" and deleted the 4th axis. One thing the documentation is incorrect about is when assigning pins you use "phase-A" not "PhaseA". For example in "linkps stepgen.0.phase-A XA".

I still have some more configuration to do for limits and travel but that's general setup stuff.