It's a long shot, but it may give some clue as to the communication protocol and possibly identifying the pins for the step / direction setup.
I have spent some time, as I suppose you have, searching the net for information on this machine but found nothing of any help at all.

Tweakie.

Here is the pictures
The orange input connection is for the step motors

I think this is the card for all 3 motors



And this is where the parrel port is connected to



the small card with the red thing is where the parrel port goes to first i think




And here is where the parrel port is connected! the card, this picture is behind



The card with the red cap

Maby you can know what this is? if you dont,  try to draw all this and see then? Here is a video of the cards!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpXn4k-rvEw&feature=youtu.be

It is possible givin the age that the machine has a serial interface NOT an LPT.

(;-)TP

The machine have LPT i think, but it is  IDE cable for the machine

btw, what is seriela interface?

If you see on picture number 4, you see that the parrel port goes to another card and that is the picture number 5

how many conductors(wires) is in the Wire that you think is an LPT connection?

(;-) TP

Thanks for posting the pictures, they help a lot.

We have established (via PM) that the e-stop is not latched in the stop position and that the stepper motors lock when the machine is switched on. This means that you will only have to find the step and direction pins to get the axes moving – there should be no drive enable signals to worry about.

The first thing you will need to check is the parallel port on your PC.
As a general rule older equipment (such as your CNC machine) uses the 5 Volt TTL standard and more modern equipment (perhaps your PC) can use the 3.3 Volt TTL standard.
From a fresh start of your PC and with no software running use a multi-meter to check each of the PC parallel port pins with relation to pins 18 to 25 which are GND (with luck you will find one that it TTL(high). If it measures approx. 5 Volts then everything is OK but if it measures approx 3.3 Volts then, in my opinion, you will need to use another PC or fit a new parallel port card to your PC which has 5 Volt outputs.

The CNC machine’s step and direction pins could be any combination of pins 1 to 9, 14,16,17.
Probably the most common usage is X axis 2,3 – Y axis 4,5 – Z axis 6,7 but your machine could be any combination and it is a laborious process to find the correct combination however, with patience it is doable.

Tweakie.

Terry,

It is my thinking that the bank of opto-couplers (on the small board) would not be necessary if this CNC machine was serial controlled. 

Tweakie.

Thanks for posting the pictures, they help a lot.

We have established (via PM) that the e-stop is not latched in the stop position and that the stepper motors lock when the machine is switched on. This means that you will only have to find the step and direction pins to get the axes moving – there should be no drive enable signals to worry about.

The first thing you will need to check is the parallel port on your PC.
As a general rule older equipment (such as your CNC machine) uses the 5 Volt TTL standard and more modern equipment (perhaps your PC) can use the 3.3 Volt TTL standard.
From a fresh start of your PC and with no software running use a multi-meter to check each of the PC parallel port pins with relation to pins 18 to 25 which are GND (with luck you will find one that it TTL(high). If it measures approx. 5 Volts then everything is OK but if it measures approx 3.3 Volts then, in my opinion, you will need to use another PC or fit a new parallel port card to your PC which has 5 Volt outputs.

The CNC machine’s step and direction pins could be any combination of pins 1 to 9, 14,16,17.
Probably the most common usage is X axis 2,3 – Y axis 4,5 – Z axis 6,7 but your machine could be any combination and it is a laborious process to find the correct combination however, with patience it is doable.

Tweakie.

Thanks

So i should take the multipeter and turn on my pc and take the measure voltage on the pc's parrel port connectiion?