laptop with no parallel port ?

[gitarre10000]

Hello ,
I have a laptop that I wanted to use with a CNC router table I am building , but there is no parallel port on it. The breakout board I was going to get was the Gecko 540. Is there anyway to use a USB or Serial port ?
Thanks

[jalessi]

Gitarre10000,

The Smooth Stepper works well:

Warp9 Tech. Design - Home of the SmoothStepper - Home

or a Pcmcia Cardbus Parallel Port Adapter:

Buy.com - Syba 1-Port Db25 Parallel Printer Port Pcmcia Cardbus Adapter

Jeff...

[hemsworthlad]

Originally Posted by gitarre10000 Hello , I have a laptop that I wanted to use with a CNC router table I am building , but there is no parallel port on it. The breakout board I was going to get was the Gecko 540. Is there anyway to use a USB or Serial port ? Thanks

No and yes.? Yes you can but would need an external motion control card like a smooth stepper etc.
If your planning on using Mach3 as control software you cant use a USB to PP converter either not sure if this is the same for EMC.?

Maybe just a miss spell on your part and sure you probably know this but thought better point this out all the same.? . . A G540 is not breakout board.? Well it is but it's really 4 drive's with an integrated BOB and spindle control all in one neat package much more than a BOB.

[hemsworthlad]

Another advantage to using a smooth stepper is lots more input/outputs for adding extra goodies, basicly it's 2 PP's in 1 also as the name suggest's it's super smooth and fast pulse stream lets the motors work much nicer and often faster.

Also because it does all the work you can use it on really slow or old cheap laptops or desk tops with usb, basicly it takes the all the pulse generation work away from mach leaving it with just the G-code side to deal with meaning muchless work for the cpu. The very very fastest computers with really good clean PP can only run at a max 100khz and even then they can become unreliable a SS has a max of 4Mhz and at 100khz it's just ticking over giving super clean pulse's.

I use a SS on an old 800mhz dell laptop and it's great one of the best bit's of kit I've bought so far. . . . There not cheap thou @ $160. but well worth it to me.

[gitarre10000]

What is SS ?
also ,
Can you please give me links to the parts u use?
So using a USB port is better than parallel ?
Will Mach 3 work still ? What software do you use?