Connecting a 2nd BOB

[boydage]

Guys I read a few posts where ppl have connected a second BOB to their PC for additional outputs. Is this correct? I have a chinese BOB connected to the parallel port, awesome in its rights absolutely no complaints. I have run out of outputs tonight. Need a few more. Or is it time to upgrade my BOB?

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[dazp1976]

Guys I read a few posts where ppl have connected a second BOB to their PC for additional outputs. Is this correct? I have a chinese BOB connected to the parallel port, awesome in its rights absolutely no complaints. I have run out of outputs tonight. Need a few more. Or is it time to upgrade my BOB?

Mach3?.
You need a pci parallel port card to achieve this and add the second port. But,,, they don't always work.

The best guarateed option is to get a new external controller.
Forget Chinese stuff, forget usb. Both are hit and miss.
Go straight for ethernet.
The 4 best options imo are:

ESS Smoothstepper.
UC400eth.
AXBB-E.
UC300eth.

The UC400eth being the cheapest of the 3 that need lpt breakout boards adding on. You can still use the one you have via a db25-idc26 cable.
The axbb-e is an all in one.

[boydage]

Ha yes Mach 3. Funny Ive spent $0000s on a machine still running with Mach 3 and a $20BOB off a PC with XP. My only complaints are on high resolution radius cuts, that have been drawn with a spline (I think) that seem to stutter, I think as it follows the many many points that make up the curve. Otherwise I am manufacturing Alloy components with the odd timber piece thrown in.

Totally note that re the USB I have heard nothing good about those. The little BOB I have installed years ago is barely visible under all the addins lol. Its taken some creativity with a LCC110 relay to input several NO and NC together into the single probe input on one pin. Same with the E-Stop that has multiple inputs.

Ok thanks for the words I will get my head around installing a new control. I think its the rewire that I am not rushing into, My bad, should have done it a long time ago lol

[joeavaerage]

Hi,
you can run a second parallel port, I did so for a while many years ago.

You'd probably need a PCI to parallel port card, and a lot of them don't work because they don't enact the parallel port exactly to the spec. Many of the cards
that used the MOSTEK integrated circuit set did work.

PMDX supply a PCI to parallel port card that is known to work. Worth the extra just to be assured that you'll end up with something that works.

I bought an Ethernet SmoothStepper seven years ago and used it extensively ever since. I had no complaints about the parallel port set-up that I had been
using but once I got the ESS I really noticed the difference in smoothness of motion. I could increase the stepper speed by 33% without losing steps just because the pulse
stream is that much smoother and accurate. Resolution.....no trouble, the ESS has a max pulse rate of 4MHz, compared to the 25kHz (default) of a parallel port, that's
160 times faster!! The parallel port would stutter or stall if anything, and I mean ANYTHING about the PC was off, never have the same issue with the ESS, and you can use
just about any PC, including laptops, and 64 bit OS's that you cannot do with a parallel port.

Really the prospect of buying another parallel port card and BoB I think is false economy. An ESS ($190USD, or $200USD if you buy from Peter Homan, Homan Designs, in Melbourne),
and another cheap BoB, say $20, or even two cheap BoBs and now you have a fast, smooth, accurate, Mach3 AND Mach4 ready motion controller with 51 inputs and outputs.
Note that Peter Homan sells his own breakout boards, MB02's he calls them for about $60AUD. They are bidirectional so can be used with either pins 2-9 as inputs OR outputs.
Note however that they have no relays, nor a PWM to analogue circuit, nor any opto-isolators. If you want or need any of those you can add a handful of parts to that that feature.
What's not to like.

Craig

[boydage]

Thankyou. Thats a good push in the right direction. I knew it would happen one day and best I look to Mach 4 as well. B

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