Newbie driver question

Hello,

I'm planning con retrifiting a manual mill/drill into a cnc.

I'm trying to figure out what is needed to use linuxCNC. The question is:

Can I use the drivers STR4 of applied motion? s3.amazonaws.com/applied-motion-pdf/STR4.pdf I'm asking because I can get those somewhat easy where I am. I was planning on using a DB9 serial port from the pc since I only need 3 axis (x,y,z) and the spindle as ON/OFF. (Maybe in the future also adjust spindle speed but not right now because the cost).

I was planning on using NEMA 24 (HT23-601) Steppers.

Does the idea sounds feasible or am I too disoriented?

I read here wiki.linuxcnc.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?Mesa_Cards that only mesa cards are supported. Does that mean other brands are incompatible?

What do you sugest?

I understand schematics and somewhat the logic behind, but I have little experience in the field. I have previouly work with Mach3 on Windows.

Thank you for the attention.

Those are basic step/dir drives and can be driven with many interface cards including
parallel port, Pico Systems cards, Mesa cards, and General Mechatronics cards

The simplest and least expensive is a parallel port (either on Motherboard or a plug in PCI / PCIE card)

Usually a BOB (Break Out Board) is used with a parallel port to increase the signal drive
strength and protect the parallel port.

Here's an example of a BOB:

www.banggood.com/5-Axis-CNC-Breakout-Int...ith-USB-p-81074.html

Thank you, I'll look out for one of those.

Ok. I'll look out for a parallel port and my planned drivers are ok, that wiki says I'll only need to give the step/direction signals.

About the parallel port, I suppose I can use one parallel port card with PCI-E like this: sgcdn.startech.com/005329/media/products...rge/PEX1PLP.Main.jpg

I found a STARTECH Sunix - SUN1989 PCI1P2 that say it support EPP. Also I'm guessing that for only step/direction signals I don't really need enhanced parallel port (EPP) but that's just a guess.

Thank you.

That is fairly old stuff. We have made a fix in the driver so that at least a few of those EPP cards now work with the Pico Systems boards. There is one card I know of that is totally proprietary, so it will only work with the Windows driver included on the CD in the box. The PCI plug-n-play enumerator IDs it as "unknown device". That's really the exception, today.

Jon