Stepper motors wiring and available inputs

[future]

Hi,

I am starting on this quest and am machining parts for the cnc router..

I am also spending some time reading about other people ideas and looking for circuits to control the steppers.

As I studied electronics at the school, I am able to build the required circuits myself.

I see that the lpt has:

8 data output pins. (2-9)
5 status input pins (10-13, 15)
4 control output pins (1, 14, 16-17)
Pins 18-25 are ground.

I decided to go for phase drive in this first try and the steppers will use all outputs from the lpt.

Having no other outputs free, how can I control the spindle motor?

I plan to Logic AND all stepper lines to activate a timer, is there other/better ways?

Also, I didn't fully understand the turbo's pin mapping as there is not a way to deactivate the function. example.. home switch Z is pin 10, but there are so many other possible input functions that some will share the same pin even if the machine does not have the hardware to allow that function.

I hope you all understand.

Thank you.

[NC Cams]

Do a "parallel port" interfacing search via the search engine on this site.

It is pretty easy to get the port to flash a lite or two with some DOS code but controlling a machine is pretty difficult even with only step and direction commands - you need software.

edit:

Get the book "Real World Interfacing with your PC" 2nd edition by J.J. Bargarello ISBN 0-7906-1145-7. It will help you even more.

YOu may also want to do a 'cnc retrofit' with "parallel port interface" as a modifier when you do the search on google.

A place called kitsrus or something like that sells diy kits to interface with the parallel ports driving steppers.

By the way, the Mach system advertised on this board already does what you want to do. Thus, you may find it to be difficult to get a whole system FOC (free of charge).

Depending on the motherboard, you can add another parallel port to control the spindle motor.

USE EXTREME CARE WITH O/S. Some new O/S's do not do direct/realtime calls to LPT port. May want to limit your O/S to DOS 6.22, Win 3x or Win 95,98,98se. Newer Win's can be REAL problematic.

Good luck in your search....

[ger21]

Just add a second parallel port card to your PC, and use that for aditional inputs and/or outputs. I believe TCNC can use up to 3 ports.