Newbie- Step and direction signals

[harshasunder]

hi
Ive got a weird problem. Ive made a config file where pin7 of the parallel port is xdirection, and pin8 is xstep.When i test using the option on the next page if i press run I get pulses on my oscilloscope only from pin7(xdirection pin).If i dont press run and click the jog button my levels change on the oscilloscope from 0 to 5 depending on which side button i clicked.But I dont get the pulses from the other step pin at all.Its just dead. When i run a file from axis i get direction signals from xdirection but no step signals now, from either pin..
is there some other setting i have to change?
thanks
harsha

[henrikw]

Hi Harsha,

Welcome to the forum!

Can you post your ini and hal file?

Henrik

[harshasunder]

hi henrik
cant believe someone replied so fast!
here are the files--
ive only got one stepper driver up so ive only configured pins for x axis

[henrikw]

Hi again Harsha,

according to your hal file, pin8 is estop-out..

try measuring pin9 for xstep

Henrik

[harshasunder]

hi
i got the pin wrong when i wrote my first post. pin 7 is xdirection and pin 9 is xstep. and im getting pulses on pin 7 and nothing on pin9.Sorry for the confusion. any other suggestion.if i measure pin9 im not getting any kind of signal

[chester88]

I would bet there is a problem with the physical port probably not set up right in the BIOS.
Change pin 9 to direction and pin 7 to step. If you get step pulses on 7 and nothing on 9
then the port has a problem.

[harshasunder]

hi chester
thanks for your suggestion.first i tried changing pins,to just ensure nothing was wrong physically, so now im using pin1 as x direction and pin 14 as xstep, and ground is pin18 .This is what happens - I get pulses on the x direction pin in the test page and nothing on the x step pin. But while running a job i get only direction signals on the x direction pin and not the pulses.The x step pin is still dead.
if i change the connections, the same things happen, except now i get the signals on the new xdirection pin(pin 14) and nothing on pin1.
If its something wrong with the parallel port settings in the bios setup, how do i fix it?

[chester88]

Ok I now don't think there is anything wrong with the paraport.
I see that your step length and step hold is very short (1 and 0).
What type of step drive are you driving? try 1000 1000 and see if a difference.

Could you post your stepconf file?

Chris M

[harshasunder]

hi
step drive is through a tiny24 microcontroller, where each falling edge of step pulse creates an interrupt which pulses 1 out of 4 output pins in order. and direction signal will reverse order depending on high or low..i tried l297 but think my ic was not working properly.
i changed step time and length manually to 1000, but didnt make a difference. Could the computer im using have something to do with it? im using a dell optiplex 760.
by stepper config file do you mean the .ini and .hal files?

[chester88]

I mean the stepconfig file.
It will be in /home/ yourname /emc2/configs (something like that)

It will end in .stepconf eg mymill.stepconf

hmm I must be missing something... strange problem!

Chris M

[harshasunder]

here are the files.. i created a new config so here are their ini and hal files too.

[chester88]

Your max velocity for x axis is set too low (1 mm/s)
set it higher (I tried 1000 mm /s)

Cheers Chris m