Mesa 7i96s step/dir ground

Hey, so I was looking through the manual to the 7i96s and can’t find if there’s a way to ground all the step/dir headers ports in series without building a cable harness to do it.  I’ve connected all the step/dir ground pins to the TB3 pin-12 INPUT COMMON.  Is there an easer way to do this?  Maybe there’s a jumper I don’t know of that would activate the same circuit as the cable I built? 

It would be nice if such a cable was included or there be a jumper option on the board with the 7i96s.  Maybe for the next model at least would be a good idea. 

Then another question?  Instead of killing power to all my drives with the estop should I just instead kill the ground to all the step/dir headers so they stop sending movement signals?  Someone earlier said its just best to kill all the drives altogether incase a drive is malfunctioning whereas if you kill just the signal there’s still a chance that hitting the estop isn’t going to stop the malfunctioning drive. Anyways what’s everyone else doing with there 7i96s’s and grounding the step/dir headers?  Thats the main question.  Thanks

 

Not sure why you would connect the step/dir grounds together
as they are already connected together on the 7I96S.

If you are using differential drive (It appears that you are)
you don't need to connect to the step/dir ground pins at all.

Also the input common (If grounded) would typically be connected to
the switch supply ground

The switch supply is often 12v/24V as this better for proximity switches
or mechanical switches than 5V


As far as EStop goes, removing primary (AC) power from the step motor
supply and spindle supply would be a reasonable  scheme.