The CNC Electronics & Electrical Department Happening

I have a confession to make....

I finally did it! I killed ALL the board in my control panel!!! There goes the PMDX-122 breakout board & the Atom MOBO!!! :(

It all happend in that thundering night, wind howling... fist size rain drop pouring.... blue flashing thunder... door banging....... Err.... nothing of that sort, ;p

Over the X'mas holidays, I proceed to wire up the control panel. Individually,  the magnetic coil contactor, E-stop circuit worked out the Mobo worked fine, BUT they don't jive with each other, ...

Wire all the components, press the start button, hear that satisfying "thump" made by the magnectic coil contactor, and a few blink of the monitor & everything went black-out.... Dead! Mati! Kong! & I didn't have the pleasure to seeing smoke!!!

With a puntured ego & coffer, I went back to search for another board as the return shipping charges to send the dead BOB back to the maker is plainly irrational.

Undetered by this set back, I (again) dive into the vast ocean of information- the internet & picked up this SINYU 5-Axis Interface Board. from the ebay.

This chunk of populated electronic component PCB features a Manual Jog function by connecting a home made joy pad, the circuit for the joy pad is given in the manual.
It has 2 Relays which I can switch on larger Magnetic coil relays for auxillary equipment.
Charge pump featured
Unique 10-wire ribbon cable terminal for connection to the Stepper Driver. I have a choice to configure the board for 5 stepper driver connection or 4.
4 sets of powered 3-port terminal with 12Vdc VCC ready for home/limit proximity switch connection.
Takes 9Vac as power which is easy to implement.

AND it is $$$ friendly too.

As for the Mobo, a replacement were sorte.


Total damage?
RM836  = USD 245 = EUR175 = GBP151= ZAR1,860 = 11,360 rupee = HKD 1,907........

ooooooooouuuuuuuccccchhhhhhhh........

 ##PS,
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I/O ??? LPPT#1 ??? Parallel Port??

Lets talk about how the PC communicate with the muscle.

In natural language, The PC is the brain and the stepper motor system is the muscle.

In this specific case, the Intel D945GCLF mobo, is the PC talk to the CNC machine?

To simplify the analogy, lets leave the EMC2 software system, the mechanical structure, mechanism, electrical ...etc out for the moment.

The PC, has a choice to send and receive signals via serial port, USB and parallel port. with EMC2, the choice is the parallel port.

Traditionally, the parallel port is used as the printer port, there are 25 pins which are arranged as per the table attched, can do 8 bi-directional ports, 4 output ports and 5 input ports.

The simplest way to connect the machine & the parallel port is directly via a cable. BUT because the signal strength from the parallel port is not strong, interfering noise can have its way with the signal & the corrupted signal my be of no meaningful use. or if the receiving end is passive or require some "drive" to work properly.
since my Stepper Motot Driver/Amplifier requires about 15mA to function properly, Hence, a buffer stage is used, normally this is made into a separate PCB which are called Break-Out Board or BOB.
I use a PMDX-122 board which I was mislead into buying. You can find plenty of board at half or less price with equivalent of better specifications. Or maybe DIY one for yourself for less the USD10.