Taig Conversion

Hello,

I'm just in the process of converting my Taig Micro Mill to CNC. I'm using the MicroProto controller (part of the conversion kit I got from MicroProto Systems) that is parallel port connected to the system.
For bring up I got the LinuxCNC live disk image and installed that on the system. I ran the latency tests and got numbers that were generally below 3000 (for the top number, I don't remember the bottom one at the moment). I used the Stepconf Wizard to convert the MicroProto supplied Mach3 profile to LinuxCNC. When I ran the Axis program and tried jogging, or the Stepconf "Test Axis" function, I got no response beyond a faint "klunk" the first time I pressed any button. The steppers didn't seem to be locked in place, I could turn them by hand with no noticeable resistance. I poked at that for an hour or so, then decided to see if the system worked with Mach3.
So, I fished up a copy of Windows 7 32bit Ultimate and installed that on another partition, updated and installed Mach3 on it, following the MicroProto instructions. That combination worked without any problems.
So, I went back to linuxcnc, reconverted the Mach3 prototype and tried it again, with the same results.

Any suggestions about how to proceed with trouble shooting? I really don't want to be running Windows.

Hi JT,

I think there's an enable line. I found the attached drawing, it seems to match the one in the MicroProto book. I haven't a clue about what to do with it yet.

Thanks,
Ken

Thanks for helping me with this.

I've attached the hal and ini file from ~/linuxcnc/configs


Ken

That got things working. Now that I have the system responding, I can learn some more. It seems a bit odd to have the Z axis 0 at the top of it's travel, but that's probably easier to remember than some arbitrary number. (I'll adapt.)

Changing the subject slightly, I'd like to replace the gi-normous box that I've got connected to the controller with something Machinekit based. I've got a Beaglebone Black, an Intel Galileo board, and an Arduino just lying around doing not much. Could you recommend someplace to find out more about getting something set up with Machinekit. I've been reading through what I can find, but it's such a mixture of "stuff" that it's hard to sort out what actually works.

Thank you again,

Ken

Has anyone yet successfully configured LinuxCNC to work with a UC100 and an unaltered Microproto/Taig DSLS3000 controller?