viable stepper driver?

[jorisrf]

hey john

i found out the printer port was fine, but since i was running 64bit win7, mach3 couldnt controll the port. so i made a partition on my hard drive and win xp 32 bit on there, figured dual booting would be a little cheaper than buying a seperate pc heh.

well i have my motors spinning and my axes moving! im just trying to figure out how many steps per mm the axes have.

since its only going to use a pen im using desk engrave. its a program that lets you type text, in the font you choose, and converts it to g-code. im still kind of trying to find out how it works.
theres some variables i can fill in but i have no idea what they mean. like: rapid height, plunge rate, dec.places, and increment. feed rate determines the speed of the moving axes, but im not sure at what value thats meant to be set, mm's per second?

[john_100]

Hi jorisrf ,

You have done well to find the software problem with the printer port

I've no idea how to use desk engrave but if its been writen in the USA
I expect it to default to inches and not mm

I'll have to look for the manual for desk engrave to see what it does

John

PS
just found this font :-
StickFont – Free software for engraving | MachinistBlog.com

DeskEngrave | MachinistBlog.com

[jorisrf]

youre probably right about the inches.
some useful info on the websites!

im still hopelessly failing at mach 3, ill try to find some kind of tutorial because i dont even know where to begin at the moment.

my stepper motors do run very hot, i remember you saying thats normal for steppers, because mine are getting too hot to touch for more than five seconds. just wondering, that might be a little too hot?

thanks!

[john_100]

Hi jorisrf ,

I think I've read some where , stepper motors can run at 80 c !

to try out Mach 3 ,
I need to either buy a PCI printer port adaptor card or make a
cable with a 26 pin connector for my PC mother board , to a 25 pin D-Type

John

[jorisrf]

Hi John,

It's been a while but i finally got round to uploading a video of the little machine
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXPI4iPEGxw&context=C4968a8aADvjVQa1PpcFO7uNqVrrO24YVFZm8AjwoEaBNsg2Y_sUM=]mini cnc machine out of old floppy drives - YouTube
Thanks for all the help on the project, have a good one!

Joris