[Swansea Hackspace] An old PC with parallel printer port?

[Justin Mitchell]

So after we have jury rigged one using a standard arduino, we can then
mill the pcb for a custom made one :)

On Wed, 2014-09-17 at 11:39 +0100, Gerrit Niezen wrote:
> It seems a solution appeared on Hackaday the same day that you were
> discussing the problem:
> http://hackaday.com/2014/09/16/usb-to-db25-adapter-uses-grbl-for-parallel-port-cnc-communication/
> 
> 
> Guess what: It’s Arduino-based and runs GRBL.
> 
> On 16 Sep 2014, at 10:16, Justin Mitchell
> <justin at swansea.hackspace.org.uk> wrote:
> 
> > If you have a have any kind of wiring / pinout for the current
> > parallel
> > connector that would be a great help.
> > 
> > but it sounds like a perfectly reasonable goal to just wire that
> > connector to an arduino board running the firmware i previously
> > mentioned, which will make running it much easier.
> > 
> > On Tue, 2014-09-16 at 10:09 +0100, Graham Owens wrote:
> > > That should read stepper & spindle drivers
> > > 
> > > On 16 September 2014 10:07, Graham Owens
> > > <grahamowensuk at googlemail.com> wrote:
> > >        Well perhaps us hardware types could meet up one night
> > > during
> > >        the week to get it up and running or at least figure out
> > > the
> > >        best way to run it.  It currently has stepper spindle
> > > drivers
> > >        built in, just needs pulse/dir signals to control it -
> > > spindle
> > >        speed is currently manual, although i have been building a
> > > pwm
> > >        controller for it.
> > > 
> > > 
> > >        PS Ceri, people who use USB -> Parallel adapters fall into
> > > the
> > >        aforementioned category of mach3 users :P
> > > 
> > >        On 16 September 2014 10:03, Justin Mitchell
> > >        <justin at swansea.hackspace.org.uk> wrote:
> > >                On Tue, 2014-09-16 at 09:39 +0100, Ceri Clatworthy
> > >                wrote:
> > > 
> > > > But I will try to order a USB to Printer port cable,
> > > 
> > >                They are of no use, they are designed only to talk
> > > to
> > >                well behaved
> > >                devices using the defined protocols, you cant bit
> > > bang
> > >                (waggle
> > >                individual lines) with any kind of speed or
> > > accuracy.
> > > 
> > >                An interesting alternative suggestion is that if
> > > the
> > >                existing controller
> > >                board is of the really dumb type, with just step
> > > and
> > >                direction inputs,
> > >                then it may be possible to use a standard arduino
> > > and
> > >                firmware and wire
> > >                up the parallel connector as if it was a bunch of
> > >                stepsticks.
> > > 
> > >                I just dont know enough about the mills hardware to
> > >                speculate further
> > > 
> > > 
> > > 
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> > > 
> > > 
> > > 
> > > 
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