Lathe Spindle control with step/dir

Hello

To begin with, i am totally new to Linuxcnc let alone Linux itself.
I build a CNC-Lathe and I now want to add spindle control with step/dir. I have a cheap 750W Servo as my spindle motor, and in terms of hardware I just want to use the parallel-port of the computer as i want to try to avoid buying extra hardware modules. For now I am totally fine with open loop.

Can somebody point me in the right direction, what i need, to get it going. because everything is quite overwhelming right now. Or is my approach what I am trying to do totally over my head?

Thanks in advance.




 

I feel really stupid, but I can't find an option in the StepConf to choose stepgen for the spindle.
I just see the options for PWM and analog spindle control. Am I missing something important?

I have figured out by myself. I will upload my Hal/Ini files tomorrow, in case someone is interested. Perhaps someone can then also validate if I made some serious mistakes which are in need of correction, but my initial test went down very well. I still need to edit the timing for the stepgen to match my drive.

Here are the relevant Files, maybe someone with greater knowledge of linuxcnc can look over them in case there is an issue.

I think there is still an issue with Pncconf Wizard in the 2.9x INI and Spindle control via Step/Dir.

github.com/LinuxCNC/linuxcnc/issues/2354

Some settings are in RPM and some in RPS (RPM/60).

Example for a 24000rpm spindle:

[SPINDLE_0]
# Max spindle speed in RPM (LinuxCNC GUI)
MAX_VELOCITY = 24000
# Max spindle acceleration in RPM per second (LinuxCNC GUI)
MAX_ACCELERATION = 5000

# Hardware StepGen requires values in RPS (revolution per second)
STEPGEN_MAXVEL = 400
STEPGEN_MAXACCEL = 500

The general StepGen comment below should probably be revised as well - for a Spindle StepGen.

# The values below should be 25% larger than MAX_VELOCITY and MAX_ACCELERATION
# If using BACKLASH compensation STEPGEN_MAXACCEL should be 100% larger."