Hi there,

I have a Mach 3 USB breakout board. When I connect it up with stepper and driver to the x-axis (XP and XD) and give x-axis jog commands/GCODE commands, it works fine. I have set the ports and pins setting at 2&3.

Now here's the thing. If I disable X axis and instead put the Y-axis port/pin setting at 2&3, then give y-axis commands, then the same stepper should move, right? But it doesn't! Worse, the x-jog command still works as before ( even though it is disabled in ports and pins ). Though g-code command doesn't work.

Is there something I am missing about the setting of ports and pins?

What I really want to do is use 2 translational and 2 rotational axes, eg. X,Z,A,B, rather than X,Y,Z,A

The board you have may be hardwired or programmed so that the ports and pins are fixed, and can't be changed.

You may need a different controller to do what you want.

Yup, I think you are right. I messed around a lot and no matter what I set the pin numbers to they work only for x-axis.

One more question, what is the difference between a 'port' and a 'pin' .

Ports and pins usually refer to a PC's parallel port, each with 25 pins. Many motion controllers use the same terminology, and often the same connectors. But in reality, there are no actual "ports" on a motion controller. They are just a method to assign pins to input and output functions. Pins are really just inputs or outputs.