Hello again friends,

I suppose by now some of you know I bought a Masso All-in-one controller, thinking it would replace the black box of mystery that came with my Chinese 6040 4 axis router. Well it aint an all-in-one solution I can tell you that much. In fact it won't work unless you use the parallel port to feed instructions to the 'black box'. Anyway, by careful 12 hours investigations I discovered the pinouts (well most of them) for the controls this Masso sends to the drivers and VFD in the black box. "A dedicated hardware and unit that does not require a PC" is a huge over statement. It really only replaces a PC and controller software. You still need everything else in the controller box, including the power supply. Somewhere I recall reading it was the chips on the stepper controller that caused the router to trip over itself. I may still have to replace that controller board... I already have the PC and software... Hmm

What I'm missing now is information about the Masso and its plethora of numbered out/in ports. The guy behind Masso said if I fronted up with the bucks (about $150 of them) to send the router to Sydney, he and a fellow who went through all this before me would sort it all out, making a video of the procedure and send it back to me when he was done with it.. Supposedly functioning the way he thinks I'll be happy with.

So far I paid him over $800 AUD for this all-in-one 'hardware and software' controller and still haven't got the proximity switches I paid for or any word of when (if) I'll even get them. I'm starting to think a Geko 540 would have solved this drama of counterfeit controller board a heck of a lot cheaper. I don't hear anyone criticizing the Geko stuff. I've never been a huge fan of embedded software at any time. Anyway... Having gone this route I've got little choice but to either get into a legal bun fight for a refund or sort out the last of the issues I'm having and live with what I've bought. That's what I'm trying to do now. In truth, I could probably live with using the spindle controller attached to the VFD. It looks slick enough and I've got a manual for it.

The point of this post (if you're still with me) is discovering how to put the corresponding pins (from the black box) into Masso for spindle control. the Masso has 7 optically separated points under spindle control but there are only 4 spindle control pins on the parallel port. There is some data on his website (hindtechnology.com) about patching into different VFDs using different language than is used with the Black Box map I've got. Leaves me confused. — Just about my normal state when I start messing with electronics!

If anyone can suggest how I can discover which of the 7 Masso outlets and/or inlets control Spindle on - Spindle off - Spindle speed up and Spindle speed down without blowing the whole thing up, I'd greatly appreciate it. Maybe if someone more versed with electronics than me can tell me the consequences of "lets try this one" wouldn't burn out anything, I'd be more inclined to experiment.

And then there's my laser cutter that I haven't yet unpacked! Talk about going in at the deep end. At least the price I paid for the laser is enough to expect a quality machine.

As always... Any and all help greatly appreciated.
Ryadia

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