Weird. I don't see an edit icon. I would have edited the above post.

I felt that I should check the cable more and discovered that pin7 didn't connect to anything.

The cable is in the garbage now.

I take it the cable was 'collected' from a different bit of equipment.
You can't undo the shells and unsolder all the wires at one end?
Or do the connectors have injection-moulded covers?

Cheers
Roger

I take it the cable was 'collected' from a different bit of equipment.
You can't undo the shells and unsolder all the wires at one end?
Or do the connectors have injection-moulded covers?

Cheers
Roger

The cable was brand new, in a factory package. Molded ends.
It must have been a special cable. Didn't have anything special on the packaging though.

I'm taking my multimeter to the store with me tomorrow. It's an unusual store....

surplusgizmos.com

Take cable back to store for refund?

Cheers
Roger

Take cable back to store for refund?

Cheers
Roger

They gave me another cable. They tested it first.
There's an actual machine for testing DB25 cables. Who knew?

Now I have different results.
The second I plug the cable in, the relay triggers. That's cool. It could be a brake release or whatever or I could set it low in software or whatever. No biggie.

First I set the pinouts.
2/3 X
4/5 Y
6/7 Z
8/9 A

Tested X and it works for about 5 cycles or less.
Tested Y and it works perfectly
Tested Z and have zero movement
Tested A and no matter which direction it's supposed to move, it moves clockwise.

I checked wires a few times. I swapped the headers on the drivers (basically traded cables) and everything repeated the same indicating the problem is either in the wiring, or the BoB.

I ran three different XML files to come to this conclusion.

I got my new BoBs in today so tomorrow is swapping one in

The second I plug the cable in, the relay triggers. That's cool. It could be a brake release or whatever
That is possibly a function of the active Hi/LO levels around the place, inc on the BoB.
I made all my outputs Active HI so that the effect of a disconnected cable etc was just the same power-down.
This does not cover the motor output signals.
You should also check any use of the Enable outputs from Mach3. Under normal conditions you can happily avoid using any of them.

Tested X and it works for about 5 cycles or less.
??
Use the LEDS and see exactly what is happening here.

Tested Y and it works perfectly
Good. You can/should also use this axis to check the drivers and motors for the other axes.

Tested Z and have zero movement
If the Z axis driver and motor check out OK when driven by the functioning Y axis, then the problem may be in the BoB or the Mach config. Guess what? LED time!

Tested A and no matter which direction it's supposed to move, it moves clockwise.
OK, Step pulses getting through but not the DIR signal. LED time and check Mach config.

No worries. You are on your way to having a good understanding of the Mach3 signalling, which will ALWAYS be an advantage. You also now have a functioning LED diagnostic tool.

PROGRESS!
Cheers
Roger

Thanks for chiming in.

I sort of took your advice. I built new probes on my multimeter and used it instead of the LEDs. It was faster.

I checked continuity across all my grounds, voltages and connections.
I saw inconsistencies so I figured, since I still had time tonight, to swap out the boards.

I was meticulous about the wires. I found, when I took them off the other board, that a strand of wire had bridged one of the connections. That's fixed and ferrules have been ordered to prevent it again.
Powered up the new board (different manufacturer but same design and components) and ended up with a repeated set of tests. Z still didn't work but X now worked 100% of the time but, like A, it only spun in one direction.

Back to the cable I went and discovered that this cable was also not giving good signals from mach3 to the end of the cable.

New cable woes....

I didn't have it in all the way.

It was a very tight fit to get it in and it almost snapped into place but I now have FOUR working axis.

Thanks for hanging in there with me.
I DO have a little better understanding of Mach3 and can now proceed with tuning the motors (just to learn) and building the next stage of the project.

Go for it.
Cheers
Roger

You are doing great!
When I converted my knee mill, I went thru the same type of things.
This forum helped got my machine up and running, and
most importantly making chips.

It is very rewarding!

olf20 / Bob

Thanks for the encouragement.

Last night I played with the tuning a little. It seems to not run the steppers as smoothly as I thought, at low speeds.
At faster speeds the motors will stall and lock.

I'm going to be playing with the tuning a lot, I think.

I'm wondering what the purpose is for having such a wide possible range on the tuning sliders. It defaults at 2000 steps per revolution (which my motors don't like) and then has a long range of speeds and possible acceleration.

I assume part of it is that I should have my stepper drivers and the steps per revolution matching before I try to tune it too much. Right now I think I have the driver set to 400 steps.

It's all part of the learning process, I'm sure.