Newbie install configuration questions

Hi All.

I am attempting to get a small CNC mill I acquired up and running. I am generally a quick study, but have zero experience with linux or CNC.

The mill is a small three-axis that originally had steppers and proprietary hardware/software (DynaMyte). The original electronics were gutted and the mill was retrofitted with servos and Gecko 320 drivers (older ones, not the currently shipping versions). The mill has been run successfully in the current configuration before, but not by me. All of the wiring seems to be correct and ohms out OK, I'm confident that the power supply for the motors, etc. is OK. mechanically everything seems to be set up properly.

I am trying to drive the Geckos from an older Dell PC with a parallel port through one of those little chinese optoisolated parallel breakout boards that you see on ebay, amazon, etc. I originally tried with windows and Mach3, but couldn't get the servos to move at all. I tried a usb to parallel gizmo that was supposed to work (I had a 64-bit version of windows) but still didn't help.

I gave up on windows and installed linuxcnc 2.6 with Debian using the parallel port, still using the breakout board. I still can't communicate with the servos, but I'm sure that the breakout board has power, the Geckos have power, and the servos have power. If I hit the "reset" switch all the servos chatter a bit but quiet within a few seconds. When I run the axis test, nothing happens.

I have the parallel port specified as 0x378, and I tried 0x278 for grins but that didn't help.

Any pointers would be appreciated. I'm deeply ignorant but I hope not stupid I have tried googling but get lost in unrelated threads.

Should I try a different breakout board? they're pretty cheap. How can I be sure the parallel port address is correct? I'm pretty sure that's doable from the terminal window but I don't have any idea how to do it.

If it is an inbuilt port, the print from
sudo cat /proc/ioports
will show it

If a PCI parport card, the print from
sudo lspci -vv
will show the addresses

The sudo is probably not necessary, but certainly prevents incomplete details in lspci

You also need to zip your config folder and attach it.
We have no idea how you arrived at your current config.

regards

can you give me details of the actual breakout board you have , link to pdf etc ?
should be pretty straight forward to sort out ,
and as been mentioned attached your full config folder as an archive to this post

details of actual connections if they have been documented would be good
a few points to mention perhaps is , the possibility of the geko having a watchdog and having linuxcnc configured to output that to a particular pin
also check any enable signals if used from the breakout board to the stepper drivers ..
and also in the correct sense , it may require certian pins to be inverted , this can be done in software ..

thats just a few pointers , but get back with further details , and we can advise further

Thanks everyone for quick and helpful responses. Life obligations are going to keep me from playing with the mill for a couple of days, but I now have several things to check and some info to bring back.

One additional hypothetical while I'm at my office: I have a couple of arduinos lying around. Would it be useful (or doable) to flash the arduino board with grbl and see if I can run the gecko drives directly from a command line? It seems that would isolate the problem to either the geckos and downstream or the breakout board and upstream. It's been a while since I checked, but I think the arduino I have are 5v on the digital outputs which should make the gecko drivers happy.

P.S. I'm happy to see a vibrant, helpful online community like this. I feel a little guilty asking what are probably really stupid /ignorant questions but I hope I have karma built up from some other boards where I'm actually helpful

dont worry about trying to attach a an arduino etc , it's not nessacary
we will debug it all as we go , and infact once we have the connections sorted out , you'll find Linucnc has some very nice tricks
and has testing and debuging inbuilt .

but one step at a time , and you'll understand as you go and things will become clearer
if my memories serve , linuxcnc has an example configuration for geko's done all ready .
,
p.s a usb to parallell port adapter will not work
you need a 25pin to 25 pin lead , connected 1 to 1

if you have any drawn circuits , when the conversion was done would be good .


just get back when you can , and we can go further .