I have a home built cnc router running stepper motors and Mach3. It's been working fine since I set it up 2 years ago. Today I was cutting a part when the computer suddenly shut down. I don't know why. I rebooted the computer and discovered the z axis will only move up. It shows correct on Mach3. I moved the wires for the z axis driver over to an open terminal on the breakout board. This worked but only for a short time. The computer died again and fried the extra terminal on the breakout board. Now I only have two working terminals but need 3. I swapped wires around at the breakout board to check the drivers and determined the drivers and stepper motors are fine. The breakout board is faulty. Two of the terminals make the stepper motor turn only in one direction. It was z axis that created the fault but I don't know why. Is it the computer, the stepper motor, the driver or the breakout board? I have ordered a new breakout board. It's a C-12 5 volt parallel port.

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