Steps getting lost - poor quality parallel port cable
 

Folks,

for the first time builders - if you intend to buy a ready made PP cable then be aware - chk the resistance between individual pins in between the two ends.

The reason being that - I had bought a ready made PP cable and my router was missing steps (the one with servos) For almost 2 weeks I was not able to trouble shoot the problem.

Finally one of my friends suggested replacing the PP cable to a hand made one.

Resistance on the readymade one was 3 ohm and I made one with a 20 core 0.25mm dia which had a resistance of only 0.03 ohm,

and then voila the machine worked perfect!

SO folks again chk the resistance of the PP cable if you are buying a readymade one.

RGDS
Irfan

Irfan, did you have a bob, like the PMDX-122, on the end of that cable?

As I understand it, a good bob takes care of cable problems.

Yes G' I had the Mini IO from Tom(www.candcnc.com), but if the steps are lost before reaching the BOB then what the BOB can do :)

so its always better to chk and buy the PP cable.

RGDS
Irfan

This needs to find it's way to the trouble shoot thread.:)

That would have taken me a month to figure out. Nice work Irfan. :)

Are you using Mach ? If you are, what was your diagnostics page showing ?

:) is there a diagnostic page :D

I use mach day in and day out - but since everything was working fine I have never gone to the length of exploring mach - its just plain load the program and run the cuts - that too I have my boy who does this for me after I program the cut :)

I will try to explore mach soon - after I finish my Mechmate build though.

RGDS
Irfan