n00b: I might be an idiot? Set up help.

I have been unable to get the most basic of anything working so far. I've tried most everything I can find here or online and I'm either screwing everything up worse or...still screwing everything up worse.

I merely just want this accursed thing to make motors wiggle, then I can work from there.


Lemme try to provide as much info as I can. I've been trying to do this for a week and so far... zip.
PC: Just semi rando parts. Some quad core semprom. 6600 I think. 4Gb DDR2. Nvidia chipset.

Pci Parallel Port card (MCS9865) on address 0x378
C11G rev 9 BoB directly from cnc4pc.com
DM542S stepper driver (I have confirmed these work by manually pulsing them)

Running parallel port monitor. Nothing.

I've attatched a lspci -v printout, the ini file, and the hal file.

Also a picture of who it is currently sitting wired. E stop shorted, limit connected NC (though disabled in hal), EN shorted to 5V, etc etc.

Thank you in advance for any guidance... or if any of you are in DFW area. Dear lord I will pay you in money or beer to come do this crap for me. lol Now I shall go get a beer and try not to hit this stuff with the large assortment of hammers within my reach.

Hi
it is saf to here that you are failing
THERE is a LIVE Chat room for direct Help that gets you more comfort by live acting on IRC Frenode

there are also multiple Videos of your bob and Configuration

I assume you messed up with the Estop
and DONT connect the 542 ENA* or ena- at al to the first moves
so you eleminate most errors
sorry im German and my understanding is not that good to advice you
but i got a Video online

I have the same controllers, but a slightly different breakout board.
On mine, the Pul+/Dir+ are wired to the same +5v pin on the breakout board (all 3 of my controllers are connected to this same pin through a terminal block), and the Pul-/Dir- are wired to the ground pin.

I can't see the details of the pins on that breakoutboard in the pic, but that might be your issue, as I can see them connected to several different pins. But again, I don't know the layout of that board.

pl7i92 wrote:

Hi
it is saf to here that you are failing
THERE is a LIVE Chat room for direct Help that gets you more comfort by live acting on IRC Frenode

there are also multiple Videos of your bob and Configuration

I assume you messed up with the Estop
and DONT connect the 542 ENA* or ena- at al to the first moves
so you eleminate most errors
sorry im German and my understanding is not that good to advice you
but i got a Video online

Your english is fine and better than my german which is remedial.
I shall search for this live chat and I will watch this video as soon as I get home.

Thank you for the tips.

IrishMoss wrote:

I have the same controllers, but a slightly different breakout board.
On mine, the Pul+/Dir+ are wired to the same +5v pin on the breakout board (all 3 of my controllers are connected to this same pin through a terminal block), and the Pul-/Dir- are wired to the ground pin.

I can't see the details of the pins on that breakoutboard in the pic, but that might be your issue, as I can see them connected to several different pins. But again, I don't know the layout of that board.

Fair enough. I will try rewiring those once I get the parport to talk even a little bit.

andypugh wrote:

MoreAaron wrote:

Pci Parallel Port card (MCS9865) on address 0x378

It isn't, you know.

It seems to be at 0xdc00
Can you try that instead?

01:07.0 Parallel controller: NetMos Technology PCI 9865 Multi-I/O Controller (prog-if 03 [IEEE1284])
Subsystem: Device a000:2000
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 64, IRQ 17
I/O ports at dc00
I/O ports at d880
Memory at fcfdf000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
Memory at fcfde000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
Capabilities: <access denied>

I have tried that prior, but not since other misc. changes. I will attempt that tonight. "0xdc00 out" yes?

Thank you for that tip. That I did not know. Linux is a tricky devil.

Well I have tried every single address I can find in lspci -v, proc ioports, etc.

lspci in op.

iports:
0378-037a : parport0
dc00-dc02 : parport1
dc03-dc07 : parport1


Nothing.
I've got a new IEEE1284parallel port cable otw which will arrive Saturday. Maybe my cable is shit. :dunno:

I'll probably check for one locally too cause waiting is for suckers.

Also... I've noticed now that the AD3 led is stuck on. Even when nothing is attached to any output pin. Could be nothing, but I guess I'll google around and see.

Thanks again for all the help so far and do keep any ideas, etc coming... before I get desperate and just order a centroid acorn. lol