Stepper control problem

[climberfreak66]

I bought two differnt preassembled stepper driver boards both claiming "plug and play" ability. So I set them up and configured mach. Nothing. So I tried Kcam nothing. I tried differnt parport modes nothing. Do you guys have any idea how I might get these to work? The first drive is http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...MEWN:IT&ih=014 and the second is http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...MEWN:IT&ih=014

thanks

[Halfnutz]

What motors do you have attached to them? What do you mean "I set them up"? They should work, I dont know why they wouldnt, you are going to have to troubleshoot. Make sure you have outputs at the printer port first, check the direction pin of one axis, it should change and hold as you switch directions from around 4-5 volts to less than 1 volt. Make sure Mach has the motor outputs enabled and set for port 1, pins 2&3, port 1 pins 4&5, port 1 pins 5 & 6 for the step & direction outputs and verify that you have logic outputs.

[climberfreak66]

I think that problem is that my printer port is outputting anything. Is their anything I can do about that? I set the motor up by attaching the leads to the screw terminals and I pretty sure they are in the correct order because I have the datasheet.

[Halfnutz]

In the set-up of Mach3 you have to set up the PORT and Pin numbers. Check that your Port address is the same in your windows control panel as in Mach3. Somewhere your settings in Mach3 or in your Windows configuration are not set correctly.

[pminmo]

I'd ask the seller first, as the seller should have the most knowledge of the product.

[NC Cams]

Phil: That suggestion makes ENTIRELY TOO MUCH SENSE.

Why would anyone do something logical like that????

[climberfreak66]

Hmmm, because I did first too. I worked with the seller for about 2 weeks and still nothing came out of it. Thats why I asked here.

[Mariss Freimanis]

A good place to start is see if signals are being sent to the drive.

Get your multimeter, set it to "DC Volts" and probe from PC ground to the DIRECTION input of the drive. Cause your CNC program to jog CW and note the voltage. Cause it to jog CCW and note the voltage again.

If signals are being sent to the drive you should see near zero volts (0VDC to 0.5VDC) for one reading. 3.3V to 5V for the other. If not, figure out why not.

Second, take the STEP wire from your drive. Touch it to either 5V or gnd on your PC. One or the other should result in the motor taking several steps wher you do. It will prove the drive is connected properly and is ready to go.

Beyond that, I can't help much. I'm not familiar with the drives because they're not ours.

Mariss