Will compumotor SX6 drive work on my printer port?

[Norman Ramirez]

Can I conect a compumotor sx6 stepper drive to my printer port on my laptop?

[One of Many]

It depends on which model SX6. If it is a step and direction drive, then it may be possible.

There have been some issues with laptop parallel ports that do not put out full 5 volts for some TTL level devices. You should not go direct, but use an opto-coupling isolator for laptop protection. The inputs of Opto-coupling devices can also provide true TTL outputs that trigger more reliably with somewhat anemic parallel port outputs.

DC

[Norman Ramirez]

What I'm trying to get going is an old New Hermes Vanguard engraver that I got from a friend. I have 3 SX drives all the same and in the manual it says it uses RS232C for communication and to use the Rx, Tx and ground terminals. I also have a demo version of mach2 mill and in config it only shows step and direction and nothing about Rx or Tx. I do have an older laptop that has a serial and parallel port, would this be a better way to go? I actually have a lot of stepper and servo drives, motors and lots of hardware that I have accumulated over time. I figured I would start with these drives since they were all the same and have built in power supplies.
Norm-

[One of Many]

With a little more time, I was able to make the distinction between the S series and the SX series.

S series is a step and direction drive. The SX however, is an addressable drive that uses a specific language via the serial port. So, unfortunately it is not going to take step and direction from a parallel port or be usable with Mach 3. The problem is that these drives act as independent cycles once sent a program stored on board. They do not coordinate motion with other drives. They are basically given a mission, handle stepping pulses internally and direction (external optioned), then report when complete.

Here, this explains it in detail....

These are still really cool drives although not S&D.



SX Users Guide

DC

[dan_the_welder]

Hi,

First thing you have to do is talk to the drives.

That requires the Xware program from Parker and a serial cable, which has your TX RX etc.

For three drives you have to daisy chain the serial, which is covered in the manual that the link was posted for above.

Then you can set the drive into FSN which is pulse following mode.

It helps to also have the Software reference manual, because you will also have to do some other stuff like disable the limits. LD3

I have been jogging my motors around with the serial cable and I am just about to see if the FSN mode works with a breakout board off the parallel port.

Fun stuff!


More soon.
Dan

[dan_the_welder]

Okey Dokey,

It is not working.

Problem one, two of my SX6 drives support the following mode and one does not.

Problem two, I cannot get this to work.

Ideas. I am programming it wrong. I have not done any programming in a while, especially in weird compumotor language which I have never used.

I may have active low/high issues in mach.

I am tired. It's 3:30 in the morning.

Good Stuff!

I have successfully down loaded the startup sequence to the drives so the step resolution is set and the drive limits are disabled on power up.

Small steps are being made. Pun intended.

Dan

[jardom]

Norman, Compumotor SX series (SXF) can only be programmed via RS232, you can design "sequences" or program subroutines in SX's memory and activate it with PC's parallel output (using the VRD command that "reads" velocity value from parallel input/output - found in Parker's Command Software Reference guide p/n 88-011871-01E).

In order to work with software like Mach 2 mill, an interface card is needed to send the velocity and direction (using 4 to 8 inputs depending on the design of the sequence) to each drive.

The command VRD uses a 4 digit input.

Interface card can use compumotor's internal 5 DC power supply. Motors can have encoder (recomended) or not. If you use magnetic sensors for displacement limits most of these sensors works with 10 to 30 Vdc.

Have you some SX drives on sale ?

Alberto Rodriguez

[dan_the_welder]

Hi,

These drives are very smart. They have an embedded computer in them as well as a high level programming language and multiple inputs and outputs.

I am trying to write the interface within the drive. Essentially using their powerful capabilities to make them dumb step and direction drives.

Stay tuned.

Dan

[samco]

can you remove the X part of the drive? With the oem650x vs the oem650 (the x has the sequencer in it) you can remove the sequencer board and replace it with 5 jumpers which makes it step and direction. Then it turns the drive into a oem650. I have played with some s6 drives.. Suprisingly with a hermes engraver...

(at the end of the video - I pan showint the s6 drives.) I have some other videos on youtube also you might like. Also - these where run step and direction directly from the printer port.

You Tube

You Tube

[Bachward Child]

Its probably not the done thing to resurrect threads this old, but I've just been given the OEM650X mod data, thanks to Lawrence Glaister VE7IT.


Quote:

I have used the OEM750X drives after removing the indexer card. You need
5 mini (0.050") jumpers. I found these as option jumpers on some older
hard drives I trashed. With the db25 towards you and the heatsink away
from you, the first 5 pins on the right (see picture) need to be jumped
front to rear.
I believe the indexer card is common to both the OEM650X and OEM750X
drives.
hope this helps

End quote.


This is the answer to a question asked frequently in different places so Im sure it'll help others.