Hi,
i had seen your video on youtube.
You need no interface board between the Stepperboard an the printerport on at your pc ? direct connection ?
Using the stepper board opto´s ?
Thanks
Correct. The board connects directly to the printer port and also outputs to the stepper motor. Basically a breakout board and stepper drivers in one. Really great design, if only the manual was in english. Good news is alot of people are using this board now, so information on setting it up is becoming readily available.
Thanks for answer.
Which Stepper Motors are the best for the Stepperboard ?
The comany sell no steppermotors :-(
I consider it best when they sell the motors in a unit with the board.
Bye
I use this board to power the X and Y ballscrews of my X2 mill. This board has the output fixed at 1.5A so make sure you buy a stepper with that current rating. I am using a 1.6A NEMA23.Originally Posted by 19roomer68
I bought my driver board from Hong Kong and the 2 page manual is in very bad English, means useless.
I have attached a picture of it. Are the boards you are talking here similar to mine?
Hi,
which picture ?
I can´t see it.
Bye
I'm sure the picture was there, dont know what happened
Here it's again
Hi,
the board is similar.
Bye
little bit different then mine.
i can't see what to do with the USB ?
Hi,
i think this board use the 5 V from the usb-port.
Or you have another idea ?
Bye
I think the USB provides 5VDC power to the board
Here are the 4 manuals I got from the web. Since I can’t make sense out of mine I searched the web and got the rest in hope to find the missing info. However I’m more confused now with all these manuals. I thought that all similar boards have a std design but that’s not the case here.
On the Driver Board Chinese1.pdf, Page 3, at the left of the LPT it shows an “External input connector” and the right of the LPT it shows a “Manual control connector”
On the Driver Board Chineese2.pdf, page 1, at the left of the LPT it shows an “Extension of the 5th axis” and at the right of the LPT it shows a “Limit input port”
On the Driver Board Hong Kong Manual1.doc, It has no picture of the board. This manual I got with my driver board. My board has the LPT in the center with a DB15 on the right and a DB9 on the left
On the Driver Board Hong Kong Manual2.pdf, page 1, it shows the LPT to the far left and next to it there is “Limits input” and after there is “Manual control connector.
All manuals have a very good coverage on how to set up MACH3. I wish they had spent the time instead to show what is what in their boards and provide a typical wiring schematic.
Does anyone have any better manual?
Sorry, can't upload the files because the upload limit is 500KB and each one of the above is about 1.6MB.
My board is a 5Ch, and I need to provide only one power line (from 12v up to 24V). It looks much like your picture, but it has one more stepper chip and a 5V regulator (7805), which I can not see in your picture. So I guess you will need separate 5V power supply.
I got my board running fine on 2 axis (X, Y) just by following the Chinese manual with no problems. Note that I never attempet to use limit switches or any fancy features, but the basics seem to be simple.
Anyway, what exactly are you having problems with?
Yes I was thinking to get the 5 axis too but decided no at the last minute. I will assume that my 5V supply will come from the USB cable I have which I don’t know where to plug it.
The other problem is that facing the back of the board I have at the left the DB25 LPT port, next to it there is a DB9 port and then a DB15 port. Now my one page manual mentions nothing about the DB9 & DB15 so I don’t know what they are for but I can only guess.
From some other Chinese manuals I found that the DB9 port is for the limit switches and that is fine. But from the same manuals I get conflicting reports regarding the DB15; one manual says it’s for “manual control” and another manual says it’s for “external control”. Do you know what they mean by “manual control” and “external control”?
I attach the one page manual I got with my board. Can you make anything out?
Thanks
Here are some close up pics of my board
I never tried that, and I would also find usefull if anyone that have already used the "manual control" port to post results.
From all the information I have seen, I tend to beleave that “manual control” and “external control” mean the same thing. I would also guess that those are nothing more than duplicated direction/step pins that overide those of the parallel port. Anyway, just a guess, and some solid info on that is still missing for what I see.
By the way. There is NO 555 chip on my board, contrary to item description on e-bay. Not that I care, but it just goes to show that we can not relly on the manufacturer description.
Hi Renatopub, did you get your board yet?
What is the NO 555 chip?
I could not agree more, no way we can trust the Orientals, they just don't understand English.
Has anyone got one of these boards working? If yes, why you don't share what you did so we all learn?
From what I can tell the board is basically a Breakout board with Drivers built in vs seperate boards. The 3 parrallel ports I have are the LPT for the PC connection, a DB connector for limit switches, and a Manual/external control connector. From what I can tell the Manual control os for a joystick. It looks like you setup the joystick ports in mach and mach interprets the joystick feedback and converts it into commands for the board. I don't think you can run the board by the joystick as a stand alone without a PC, but I may be wrong. I have gotten Mach 3 to output steps to the board, but the PS I currently have is very low current and is not enough to drive the stepper. I have had to divert my attention away from this project some as I just purchased a working Bridgeport CNC Boss machine and have been doing alot of reasearch on its control systems. Once I get a PS to test this with better I will post again. Generally speaking, the China manual is worthless minus the mach 3 port settings via screen shots. Minimal english, very very very bad translations.
Yep, got my board a couple of weeks ago. It is working well on X + Y axis. What I meant is that the board does not contain any 555 chip. They claim that it goes automaticaly in low current mode when there are no pulses for a while in the step ports. Guess that i swhat they call "auto flow", guess by "flow" they mean "current" in a bad kind of English. They say it is controlled by a 555 chip, but there is none in the board, so either there is no low-current mode, or it is achieved some other way other than using a 555 chip.
Hellhound much appreciate your time; congrats on your BridgeportCNC Boss machine and good luck. Your info brings some light about the “Manual/External Control”
Bad translation? Could not have been worst. Better they had left it in Chinese, lees confusion trying to figure out what they mean LOL
Renatopub thanks for the info. Can you tell me if your board is the same as mine?
To avoid confusion, I will make a suggestion to all forum members who have purchased a driver board from China / Hong Kong; since there is no name or model number on these boards, why we don’t post a picture of the board and give it a name? Then when we exchange info, we know what we are talking.
I have posted the picture of my board and I will call it HK1
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