Thanks Ken, it is appreciated.

Danilo, from your idea I found this and thought I should post it on here for others looking at PMDX-126 and a smoothstepper and how to tie it together.

Another option might be to use a raspberry pi, which is my personal controller of choice. There is a linux modbus driver available.

Below is a pic of some experimentation I have been doing that makes use of some of the extra DIN terminal blocks I have. This is intended for a homebrew home security system. However now that I know about modbus, I will probably make another for interfacing with mach3.

Apparently I still can't spell or post something correctly.

Was supposed to be on post 642

http://www.cncrouterparts.com/ethern...-34-p-274.html

The more I dig into Arduino, the less I think it will be applicable. It seems it has to be connected through USB. This would make the RS485 option of multiple devices more complex. This may be just my thick-headed skull getting in the way but since I already use RS485, I would like to stay within that wiring structure.

So I called PMDX and was able to talk to Steve Stallings. I will be for the time being be going with the option card PMDX-108. It has a descent response time at 20us. Modbus has a 20ms response. I will definitely be looking into the ESS for next year. Looks like I may need it anyway with Mach4 if and when I upgrade. As far as my conversation with Steve....great guy, extremely helpful and just an overall good experience.

PMDX-108 Input installed.

That would be a very general statement. I have just learned more about parallel ports. Where to begin. I received the part yesterday with a cable. Unfortunately I was sent the wrong cable, first I modified the received cable but then I used some old computer ribbon cables and connectors, modified them, tested it and connected the board successfully. That is a story in itself. Well I set Mach parallel port 2 to have pins 2-9 as inputs, assigned them as OEM triggers and created Brain to manage the inputs. Decided to use Config 4 for 'merged touch probe' for both my digital probes (one as Z zero and the other for probing). First I set the power jumpers on the 108 and tested the cable between the 108 and 126. No power on 108....hmmm....So I tested the touch probe. It works flawlessly, both probe activate the touch probe input so back to the 108. I used the header to header cable from the 126 to the 134 and now I had power. However I was not receiving confirmation in Mach when the circuit for the pin was closed. Back to the internet. Found before bed on MachSupport forum that sometimes the add on pci parallel port cards do not work with pins 2-9 and to try swapping the cables.

In the morning, I powered up the machine for another test and noticed the 126 LEDs were all lit up before power was applied and only the computer was on. When I turned the main power on, they went out. Suspect it is a parallel port problem. So I unhooked the 108 and tried again. No lights...good. Put the 108 back in and lights again. So I shut down, swapped the cables on the parallel ports and tried again. No flickering lights on the 126. So that much is solved, now onto the input status. Tried the inputs again and Mach was not picking them up. So I went into the BIOS and changed the LPT setting from ECP to EPP only. Fired it up and now the inputs registered. Ok, now why does not the ribbon cable work because it should receive power from pin 26. The cable they sent me was a 26 header to 25 DB25 so I looked and it was a 25 wire cable. So I went back up and found another extra long floppy ribbon and disassembled it and made a new cable. Tried it and it worked. Now I hooked back up the 134 to the 126.

Did some more reading and I found this ' Here is one point that I am not sure was mentioned very clearly. For a device to be in the EPP mode the device must have pins 1,14,16 and 17 pulled high otherwise the pc would default to the ECP mode.'. This was copied from and located here. Not so sure this applies but I do know that when the pci parallel port was connected to the 108 and 126 that neither one functioned correctly but they do now on the integrate parallel port.

So now I have to do some testing to find if the card swap will cause any unintended hiccups. The ECP setting that the integrated port was set to before did not work. Only when I set it to EPP did it work. This may have made some trouble before but I am not sure. I am using port 2 pin 1 and 14 for my 4th axis but apparently that is not enough to change the card to EPP mode. I would prefer to let the integrated parallel port be the main runners for the step and direction. However I believe I will follow Danilo's advice and upgrade to a smooth stepper in the foreseeable future. The 108 is setup to work with it so there would not be any losing ground.

Running tests to make sure all is well. Just cut out another set of circuit boards for another touch probe. Since I have enough ball bearings to make at least 10, enough copper clad for 6 and enough components for 2, I figured spares are good. Going to use my test wood piece for making sure all is still well, it will be the Winter Wonderland plaque I shared on here a while back.

Put it through its paces Pete. Why were you needing the additional inputs? what types of things are you loading on this new board?

If you'll be offering the probes/or parts of them to fellow MM-s let me know I'm interested.

Tom, I did not get to far. Norovirus struck the household and laid everyone out. This is the first I even cared to look at the computer. The reason I wanted more inputs is from working in industry there are certain things that will drive a maintenance person insane. One of these things is series or parallel circuits. It takes longer to troubleshoot. It comes down to engineers not having to troubleshoot their own work and with uptime at a premium it is wasted time. I will have all the home switches and limit switches separate now so I can see each individual input and not a shared input. Plus it allows more push button actions at the machine, such as setting z zero after changing the tool. That is the end result I am working toward.

Fox, if I decide to do that I will let you know.

Sorry I would post the picture on here but Flickr geniuses have created a bug in their bccode generator. Hopefully they get it fixed soon. Here is the link to the cutout of the Christmas file I posted that I used for my test piece.

Pete,

I like the pictures of the snow. It is always nice to look at snow when it is beach weather.

That's just mean Nils.....
Some of us are SICK of winter....

Yea, I am sick of it too. I will have to put away my sweaters till the next cold season. You noticed I did not say WINTER!

You are all nuts, you can always put layers on but there is only so much you can (and should in most cases) take off. I will take snow any day.

My sentiments exactly. Living is Australia with horrid heat and humidity I long for winter every year. Loving today as it is raining :)

We got 6 inches of snow yesterday morning. It was gone by 7pm, temps reached mid 40's (f) and rain washed it away. But today in the 20's, crazy weather. I too am sick of it.

We were close to 80 last week for one day, then high 20s with 25 mph wind gusts yesterday, and mid 50s today.... crazy.

7° this morning. Coldest winter ever and we're about 1-1/2" short of the all time snowfall record.

Gerry, Just wait for it, its coming (in mid April probably), ha ha :)

7°.....that's a nice summer day around here :p
here's a look at this morning situation :
:eek:

Attachment 14676

:p.....;)

Ouch...no thanks.

7°F = -14°C
We're even, lol.

Aaaa....true.....your in °F !
;)

There will not be Spring, only the unprepared move from Winter to Summer.

LOL....
Have we derailed this thread enough yet?

You could sum up my 4th axis project with that

If we ever see summer :eek:

Derailed....naaa.....some just got.....frozen :p...:D
R ;)

LOL. You are both funny.

Flickr fixed the problem so I will post it here finally.

This is cut right from the machine with only a stiff brush cleanup, no sanding. Total size was 16.25" x 10.875" of stain grade pine. File was 655k lines of code. Used Beckwith 1/8" tapered ballnose and detailed with 1/16" tapered ballnose and profile cut with 1/4" bit. I feel comfortable now to proceed with the next cutout. Have a 30" x 30" x 1.5" piece here to carve but was a little nervous after any hardware change. This will most likely be given away as is to whoever wants it at work.

https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3723/...1ea10036_c.jpg
Test Cut after PMDX-108 Input card installed

Nice detail on the tree and antlers.
I have a few Beckwith bits as well.
They cut very well.

I have been more than please with them

Pete....I have little experimentation in cnc sculpting !
You result looks very well done and intrigue me as, could you tell us more on what those tapper ball nose contributed vs a regular straight ball nose...aside of what I may assume...being more rigid and prone to brake !
tks

I'm not Pete, but I find the taper lets you reach deeper into a carving without fouling the details carved in a previous cut layer, if that makes sense.

Tapers also ten do be quite a bit longer than straight ballnose. You can a 1/16" tapered ballnose 1" long I think, where a 1/16" straight ballnose would only be 1/4" long.

Gerry is correct, the cutting length is longer as well as OAL, usually.

This has been fairly well answered here but I will try to contribute a little more. The taper angle of 3° is fluted the entire taper to the shank. This produces a stronger tool with an longer overall length. It prevents burning the work piece as well because you do not have a shank turning/rubbing the wood and burning it.

Touch Probe Update

The touch probe I built based on the designs from hmsc has proved to be precise and accurate. The plans did not have any compensation for fine tuning. I believe this was intentional and for the end user to make their own based on the mount. I fell back to using set screws with a V groove to allow to lock the position in from the side when the pressure is from set from the top with the opposing screws.

I did a quick alignment today to set it up. Within five minutes the probe is set to within 0.0004" error between to rotational checks at 90° and 270° and 0.0000" at rotational checks at 0° and 180°. I checked each side 5 times to record any error and each one stopped at the same readout every time.

Overall I am please with the outcome of the probe. It would not be accurate for metal work but more than accurate enough for wood working.

May I place my order Sir? :rolleyes: