Re: [CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO] upgrade

Quoting Scott L Golden (escowizard@...):

> That why I want to modernize as much as possible. I thought I would have to
> replace the Bandit in total but..............interesting....
>
> So how did you hook up the motor drivers to your pc exactly?

You should check on the pin out for whatever software you're using.
I'm using EMC, and EMC will directly generate the outputs I need
for each phase.

The first setup I used was nothing more than a 25 pin parallel port
adapter with some current limiting resistors and some 16 pin sockets
to plug the drive controller ribbon cables of the Bandit into.
Power from the parallel port happily drives the optical isolaters
already in the bandit, and away she goes. Less than $10 in parts
from radio shack.

I don't know, however, if any of the other software pacakages you might
want to use to run your mill will generate anything other than step/dir
signals out the parallel port. To move to step/dir, I used a pic
microcontroller and a very simple program that takes step/dir in and
output the phase outputs I want. Mine also does half stepping,
though I never bothered to do microstepping.

Jonathan