I am running a Shoptask machine with some Superior 550 in/oz bi-polar
steppers on each axis. I use one of Dan Mauch's 5 amp controllers and
power
the CNC stuff from a 24 VDC 20 amp surplus power supply. I have been
running
it from DeskNC DOS version. I also have DeskNC Win95 , DanCAD, and
Stepster
all set up on the system just to see what I like. Of the group of
software
products DeskNC DOS seems to be the most stable.
I became interested in a program that would provide G42 offset support as
the Vector (the CAD/CAM product I am using) is designed to output it's
G-code using offsets. So, with all the software I currently have I must
go
in and manually draw offset paths and then remove the G42 and G40 command
from the code. A big pain, but workable. I was considering MaxNC, but
with
all the talk about EMC on this list I though I would give it a try
before
shelling out some more $$$ for this hobby.
I got this message when I sent my reply about the parallel port stuff.
Vector sounds similar to what I'm using as it operates the same way.
Drawing an offset path is a pain especially if you use reground tools!
I would very much prefer if we can find a way to get it reconfigured in
the
software as all the other programs I have installed are configured for
this
particular setup. This particular configuration is what is specified for
DanCAD which to my taste is better documented in how to interface the
controller to the parallel port than any of the other software I have
seen.
I'll call Fred tomorrow and let him know what you want to do. It seems
there are two "standard" pin assignments for stepper control from the
parallel port, the DanCAM one and the one used by SuperTech for their
software. See:
Matt
