[catco]

Good morning. I'm new here, and new to CNC mini mills, but not new to CNC machining. That being said, I'm not an electrical engineer by a long stretch. I'm in need of some direction and I'm hoping someone out there can help. I have a Seig X2 mini mill that I'm converting to CNC. I bought the steppers, driver boards, and breakout board from Probotix. I have Mach 3 for software, and a jog pendant and board coming from CNC4PC. My questions are these: Can the spindle motor on Seig 2 be controlled by the software (I understand the software is capable, is the spindle)? if so, how does one go about that. I'm aware of the board that CNC4PC has for driving the spindle, but I don't get how the PC interacts with the board. Also, once I put limit switches on the Probotix breakout board, there appears to be no room for expansion. Can you chain breakout boards together to allow room for expansion? If anyone can shed some light on any of this it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for you time, and have a good day

[escott76]

There are of course many different combinations of breakout boards and specific controller add ons. Mach 3 can interact with various flavors of board to give spindle control, weather it be on/off through as a toggled switch, or step/dir pulses as if you were controlling a servo or stepper.
The number of inputs and outputs on a PC parallel port is limited. By the time you've put in step and dir for each axis, and a couple of other functions, you may quickly run out of IO. In order to get more IO you can add a second parallel port to the computer, and if you need to, hang another BOB off of that.
Mach has a bunch of good videos on their site that explain a lot of this setup and configuration of the software, they are well worth checking out. Get the basics running first, then move to stuff like spindle control and jog pendants.

[catco]

Thanks for your input. I will try there first. My biggest concerns on both the spindle and the breakout board was getting backed into a a corner that I couldn't get out of short of spending a bunch of money. I appreciate your response. Have a good day!
Thanks, Mike

[hoss2006]

Cnc4pc's C6 board works great for controlling the spindle of the X2.
Just makes sure to heed the warning about using a separate 12v power supply for it.
I have some more info here and have a video for setting up Mach 3.
It covers setting up a 2nd parallel port too.
I mention the small differences with the board I used and the stock X2 board.
Hoss

[catco]

Hoss2006,

Thanks for the heads up on that. I'm likely to buy some stuff off your website. I'd like to pose this question to you: Mach 3 is capable of reading 2 parallel ports. I'm going to need one for the Probotix breakout board and stepper drivers, one for the CNC4PC jog handle, and I still need one for the spindle driver board (I think) can I install a second parrallel port board in the PC with 2 parrallel ports on it and cheat that way?

[hoss2006]

Hoss2006,

Thanks for the heads up on that. I'm likely to buy some stuff off your website. I'd like to pose this question to you: Mach 3 is capable of reading 2 parallel ports. I'm going to need one for the Probotix breakout board and stepper drivers, one for the CNC4PC jog handle, and I still need one for the spindle driver board (I think) can I install a second parrallel port board in the PC with 2 parrallel ports on it and cheat that way?

You're right that Mach can only read from 2 parallel ports so thats the most you can have.
2 is plenty for what you seem to want, I have 6 motors on the port one c10 and use the other for all the MPG inputs and C6.
Still have a few inputs left for whatever.
Thought about trying a modbus instead but didn't, $$.
Here's how I'm using the (2) C10's.
Hoss