Light Machines Company Mill

ok with the step timing at 30000 velocity 0.1in/s and acceleation 10in/s2:
X will move right smoothly but still sounds like someone cleaning their teeth when moving to the left
Y will move towards the front with a lot more noise and a jerky action and will not move towards the back
Z will move up smoothly except for what I am hazarding a guess at as being skipped steps or something but will not move down at all

Hopefully I will get a video of it moving so that it may become more obvious what is happening... as I have no background really in this area

Not sure about the resistance but when I have run the mill from anoter computer with the original software on it the mill has run smoothly

Not sure what you mean by couplings... Do you mean the little plastic things that join the stepper and the threadded rod?

Could it be that there is extra interference where I have cut the cable and rejoined it?

I am using the parralel port to drive it directly.

I was hoping to get away with just wrapping the wires together to get the mill operational and then cutting a pcb and then soldering the leads to that... but I may try soldering the straight togther now.

I am fairly sure the port puts out 5v as when I wass trying to work out a way to stop the spindle without unplugging it from the control box, I found that between at least one pair of wires there is 5v.

Yes I have made an adapter cable but the way that I did so was to cut the original (I still have a spare) and rejoin some of the wires, however upon re-reading the directions on Shannon's page I think he suggests to make one to go between the original cable and the pc. Would that be a better way to do it?

Ok now all the leads are soldered together but it is still behaving in the same manner...The only action that seems to be properly smooth is the x axis to the right when at 0.1in/s

Hi guys,
I try to use EMC to run a stepper motor through this kind of driver:
www.tehranpic.net/images/sq5atwarzls2s160sp1m.jpg
I use StepConf Wizard but there is nothing. It seems nothing come out of my pc! no pulse or anything.
My first question is that Im using the live CD and still don't install the program. Is there any problem with this???
and I just want to test the program and the motor, so I didn't change settings from their default in StepConf.
Is there any setting which should exactly match with hardware??
and Is there anybody who know any other possible problems?
sorry for poor English,
thanks in advance
shafagh

I sometimes find it is good to start with the basics. You can start with a simple test meter on the direction output, make sure in one direction it is 5 volt and in the other it is 0v.
This shows you have an output, you are on the right axis, right port etc. Does the voltage stay stable when the axis is in motion?
If you have a scope you can look at your step output and see what it looks like.

As John pointed out some parallel ports do not output a full 5 volts, only around 3.3v which might not be enough for your driver.
Some breakout boards have leds to show the state of the outputs which is a great troubleshooting aid and some will take the 3.3 volts input from the PP and output a 5 volts signal for your driver.

Rick G

ok so maby I will need to set up some transistors with a 5v power supply to help ensure the signal gets sent?