<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=windows-1252"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;">It seems a solution appeared on Hackaday the same day that you were discussing the problem:<div><a href="http://hackaday.com/2014/09/16/usb-to-db25-adapter-uses-grbl-for-parallel-port-cnc-communication/">http://hackaday.com/2014/09/16/usb-to-db25-adapter-uses-grbl-for-parallel-port-cnc-communication/</a></div><div><br></div><div>Guess what: It’s Arduino-based and runs GRBL.</div><div><br><div><div>On 16 Sep 2014, at 10:16, Justin Mitchell <<a href="mailto:justin@swansea.hackspace.org.uk">justin@swansea.hackspace.org.uk</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite">If you have a have any kind of wiring / pinout for the current parallel<br>connector that would be a great help.<br><br>but it sounds like a perfectly reasonable goal to just wire that<br>connector to an arduino board running the firmware i previously<br>mentioned, which will make running it much easier.<br><br>On Tue, 2014-09-16 at 10:09 +0100, Graham Owens wrote:<br><blockquote type="cite">That should read stepper & spindle drivers<br><br>On 16 September 2014 10:07, Graham Owens<br><<a href="mailto:grahamowensuk@googlemail.com">grahamowensuk@googlemail.com</a>> wrote:<br>        Well perhaps us hardware types could meet up one night during<br>        the week to get it up and running or at least figure out the<br>        best way to run it.  It currently has stepper spindle drivers<br>        built in, just needs pulse/dir signals to control it - spindle<br>        speed is currently manual, although i have been building a pwm<br>        controller for it.<br><br><br>        PS Ceri, people who use USB -> Parallel adapters fall into the<br>        aforementioned category of mach3 users :P<br><br>        On 16 September 2014 10:03, Justin Mitchell<br>        <<a href="mailto:justin@swansea.hackspace.org.uk">justin@swansea.hackspace.org.uk</a>> wrote:<br>                On Tue, 2014-09-16 at 09:39 +0100, Ceri Clatworthy<br>                wrote:<br><br><blockquote type="cite">But I will try to order a USB to Printer port cable,<br></blockquote><br>                They are of no use, they are designed only to talk to<br>                well behaved<br>                devices using the defined protocols, you cant bit bang<br>                (waggle<br>                individual lines) with any kind of speed or accuracy.<br><br>                An interesting alternative suggestion is that if the<br>                existing controller<br>                board is of the really dumb type, with just step and<br>                direction inputs,<br>                then it may be possible to use a standard arduino and<br>                firmware and wire<br>                up the parallel connector as if it was a bunch of<br>                stepsticks.<br><br>                I just dont know enough about the mills hardware to<br>                speculate further<br><br><br><br>                _______________________________________________<br>                Hackspace mailing list<br>                <a href="mailto:Hackspace@swansea.hackspace.org.uk">Hackspace@swansea.hackspace.org.uk</a><br>                <a href="http://swansea.hackspace.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hackspace">http://swansea.hackspace.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hackspace</a><br><br><br><br><br><br>_______________________________________________<br>Hackspace mailing list<br><a href="mailto:Hackspace@swansea.hackspace.org.uk">Hackspace@swansea.hackspace.org.uk</a><br>http://swansea.hackspace.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hackspace<br></blockquote><br><br>_______________________________________________<br>Hackspace mailing list<br><a href="mailto:Hackspace@swansea.hackspace.org.uk">Hackspace@swansea.hackspace.org.uk</a><br>http://swansea.hackspace.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hackspace<br></blockquote></div><br></div></body></html>