As a former product manager for a significant piece of software, I say that Brian's response is very ominous.

If that means that he intends to put Mach in permanent maintenance mode while he and a team bring out the next new thing (perhaps not parallel port based), he certainly isn't saying that.

Frankly his response gives me very little confidence.

Mach 3 has been very stable for me for more than a year. Parallel adapter cards are readily available for normal desk-top type computers (for those newer computers that don't have a parallel port built in). I've tried several parallel adapter cards in my test-bench units and have had no problems of any kind.

Whether Mach software continues to evolve should not be a great concern to those of us who use the current version. It works just fine as it is.

I welcome Brian's response. Mach3 (Mill) already has far too much in it for woodwork routing. The curious thing is that there was no mention of Quantum.

The discussion continued:

Question:
Brian, in this discussion vein. Can you offer any rough idea's as to future
version's of Mach. I know Art had mentioned about this time last year that "Q"
would be the next big thing and this would entail a complete re-write from the
ground up, of Mach. Things like 5 axis interpolation/offsets would also be
included.

Anyway, just thought I'd ask.. having S curving with the rest of Mach's
attributes would be great!

Brian's reply:
I would like to take the next 6 months and just keep fixing small bugs
and cleaning up the code. Art had been working VERY hard for 6 years and
never got the chance to do this and if we are going to add anything more
to the code it must be done. Mach3 is very robust at this time and we
would like to make it better :) There are 5-6 small bugs that have
plagued us over time and I would like to see them gone!

Q will get worked on after Mach3 is finished as it is the base for
Quantum.. As you can tell we are not looking for any big jumps at this
time :)

Gerald,

Thanks for the updates.

Maybe it's just the damn Engineer in me, but this is good reading.

Does anyone know what pin # is used to turn on the router relay in Mach 3? I guess what I need is the entire deal about how to do it.

I think it is pin 1. (See table 17 of PMDX-122 manual)

In Mach3, ports & pins, Output Signals, I have Output #1 enabled to port 1, pin 1.

Check if M03 in the G-code turns it on and M05 turns it off. My memory is rusty on this.

Thanks Gerald. I'll check it out.

J.R.

That's one of my projects for this weekend too. If I figure it out, I'll post something.

JR, I think you are looking to make the green tick, plus add 1 and 1 as port and pin, on this screen:

Attachment 782

And I think that is all there is to it - the relay will then respond on the M03/M05 commands

I'll try it Sunday and let you know. Thanks

J.R.,

I found some pretty good instructions for basic setup of the program at http://www.machsupport.com/documentation/

If you download the basic setup of Mach3Mill, it discusses setting the ports and pins for the charge pump and the relay you are using to control your router. Good luck with it.

Downloaded!! Thanks Doug.

Just to add to Gerald's post above

Also the second part of setting the spindle control is on "Spindle Control" page.

Make sure "Disable Spindle Relays" is not checked. Set Clockwise to output 1.

Set the delays you need in "General Parameters"

Greg

Greg, thanks very much for posting that page - I completely forgot about it :o:o

That is the page where you say the router/spindle is controlled from Output #1.

On the page I showed earlier, is where you say that pin number 1 (to which the relay is soldered on the PMDX) shall be designated as Output #1.

(Could of course have #2 etc., but then both pages must correspond)

Your manufacturer should give you a configuration file like a driver.. Unless you use a DIY..

also there are a great set of tutorial videos. I've watched them a few times. http://www.machsupport.com/videos/