Driver boards for LinuxCNC

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07 Jan 2019 19:44 #123717 by Soundreflections
Driver boards for LinuxCNC was created by Soundreflections
I am probably just looking in the wrong place, so apologies for what MUST be a repeat thread.
I have recently bought a new PC to convert my mill to CNC, but was shocked to find that I cannot get parallel ports anymore.
What cards can be recommended for a basic mill setup? It is quite a basic mill, I would need 3 axis, speed (and DIR? - I can't see why it needs to run backward?). Stepper motors...
Later on I will look at building a CNC machine that I am working on - multi function including PnP with vision, but will ask about that when I am nearer to building it.
Right now I have a machine that I would expect one or two parallel cards to run fine, except I can't get parallel cards and am wondering what the alternatives are?
Thanks,
Peet.

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07 Jan 2019 20:43 #123720 by Todd Zuercher
Replied by Todd Zuercher on topic Driver boards for LinuxCNC
It may be hard to find one stocked locally, but they are easy to find for sale on the net. A quick google search will bring up an almost endless supply of hits.

Do you need one for a PCIe or PCI slot?
www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item...G6K8B49346-_-Product

www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item...5M11TB9333-_-Product

These are not cards that I know if they work or not, just the first two cheapest ones that popped when I searched Newegg. I'd be surprised if they didn't at least work for software stepping, which is what you want to do.

I bought a dual port PCIe card a few months ago (they are a lot harder to find). And it is working for software stepping, but I did have a little trouble getting it to work at first.

Another option is to use a Mesa card.
store.mesanet.com

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08 Jan 2019 06:19 #123750 by Soundreflections
Replied by Soundreflections on topic Driver boards for LinuxCNC
Thanks - I forgot to look at these type of sites!
When the main suppliers cannot get and you no longer have one on the main board one can forget the alternate suppliers! We have Takealot that sells them locally.
Thinking about my "big" machine - what cards with some processing, as well as BLDC driver setup is recommended?

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08 Jan 2019 11:12 #123770 by andypugh
Replied by andypugh on topic Driver boards for LinuxCNC

I am probably just looking in the wrong place, so apologies for what MUST be a repeat thread.
I have recently bought a new PC to convert my mill to CNC, but was shocked to find that I cannot get parallel ports anymore.


Oh, but you can!

Either on the back panel, or with a motherboard header:

All these boards have a parallel port:
www.mini-itx.com/store/category?type=mot...&sortby=price&page=1

That said, the parallel port is not a particularly good or flexible interface.

This is a (partial) list of the alternative driver boards supported by LinuxCNC:
wiki.linuxcnc.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?LinuxCNC_Supported_Hardware

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