Re: [CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO] Gecko power requirements

Weyland wrote:

>
> Okay, now I'm jazzed having the power supply built.
>
> I *had* been planning on using another computer power supply
> to deliver the 5 volts for the logic parts of the Geckos, but
> noticed a mention of getting it from the parallel port of the
> controlling computer in the Gecko white papers.
>
> I'm a little unclear on the wording of it,
> but it appears to me that I can eliminate
> the secondary power supply and just use the
> parallel port to get this voltage.
>
> Am I getting this correctly?

If you use a Gecko 201 or 320 you need +5V from
somewhere (the Gecko 210 or 340 can operate using GND
only).

The parallel port does not have +5V available, but
you can inject +5V into the parallel cable using a
suitable card (such as my pBreak parallel port breakout
board), using one of the redundant line 18-25 GND
lines at the computer end. In this case, line 25 is
arbitrarily reserved for +5V, and this allows you
access to +5V at the equipment end.

The same technique can be used into 'inject' +12V
into the parallel cable (line 24) and/or various
gameport signals from the equipment end back to the
gameport at the PC end.

See my webpage (or Tim's Parallel Port info page)
for a graphic of the possibilities.

Doug Fortune
http://www.cncKITS.com