[sunmix]

Hi, I'm planning to build my own cnc, which uses up 2 printer ports. So, i will have to buy a new pci parallel port. I bought a few and it gave me alot of trouble. Can anyone recommend some pci parallel port that is good? I've heard that some pci parallel port has built in pull-up resistors too.

[ger21]

http://rogersmachine.net/PCIport.html

[pastera]

http://store.4linkcomm.com/pcitopa1coca.html

http://store.4linkcomm.com/pcitopa2coca.html

Aaron

[HayTay]

sunmix,

This is the one I am using in my PC with Mach3 and it's working like a charm,
SIIG CyberParallel PCI ECP/EPP Parallel Port I/O Card (supports EPP, ECP, BPP & SPP modes).

[Bowman]

Make sure that the mobo your using allows adding the extra parallel card to any PCI slot. I know with some mobo's only certain PCI slots could be added to with certain types of cards due to IRQ issues. Been awhile since I got deep into the hardware but I seem to recall something like this as an issue with other addon cards in the past. Isn't there something about putting a PCI network card in the first slot following the AGP slot because of the way the mobo has its channels set for each slot? This may be old and no longer an issue on newer machines but I don't know what your running so this may be the issue. Good luck with it.

[kentavv]

FWIW: I tried a SIIG PCI dual parallel card and with it installed XP would frequentally lockup while in Mach. After taking this card out and using the port built into this Dell I have had no problems. I got a SIIG after hearing many good things but perhaps the dual poprt cards are not as good?

[HuFlungDung]

As Bowman indicated, IRQ conflicts are the main problem with adding in PCI parallel ports. Before you install one, check device manager to see what IRQs are available. There may be no 'real ones' left, and most often, virtual IRQs are no good unless the PCI card is true plug and play. Even then, the application may have trouble with port numbers and IRQs that are not in the 'real range' between 1 and 15.

Older computers may tie up a couple of IRQ's with the on-board COM ports. These should be disabled in BIOS setup first, if not needed, and maybe reboot into windows before installing the PCI card and remove them from the Device manager, if they are still shown there. Then shut down and install the new card. I would avoid the PCI slot beside the AGP slot.

[wcarrothers1]

I've got a Compusa one in my p3 and it works fine. Although I pulse my motors with the onboard one (use the extra one for mpg's

[wcarrothers1]

Compusa brand enhanced parallel port card (they also have one with extra serial ports on it but this is just the single LPT port card) work = well on both my p3 and p4 machine. Although the driver chooses different addresses depending on what machine it's in for what ever reason. So if I move an XML mill file from 1 machine to the other I have to update the port.

b.