The Shop > Electronics & IC Programing

Can I cable a GRBL Arduino to the parallel connector of my CNC controller?

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vtsteam:
I agree, Ade. There are also duplicates for 21, 23, etc. plus the two N/C wires. Well, 36 wires into a 25 pin connector are gonna yield 11 extras. I think there's multiple grounds on a DB25 parallel setup, too. 

Anyway, we're just going to use 12 of them. I tagged the necessary wires this morning with their functions, and trimmed the others back.

 

vtsteam:
Well this was the temporary setup today, taped to the top of the CNC controller box and plugged into the parallel port.

 

I'd like to say it worked but, nope. Not a stepper motor peep out of it when everything was powered up, and I sent a jog command. None of the axes responded. No smoke either.

I suppose it could be that the limit switches aren't set right. I did check the Emergency Stop button. There is no wired "Enable" line on this CNC controller. Guess it was not considered necessary.

No detectable magic smoke was released during the test. Nothing happened at all.

Back to the drawing board. :(

vtsteam:
Double checked wiring and it followed this pinout diagram, except no Enable/Disable, no spindle speed, and the Emergency Stop was connected to Reset/Abort pin -- the rest of those switches on the left side were omitted:

 

RussellT:
Hi Steve

When you say there is no wired enable line on the controller, what do you mean?  If the stepper drivers have an enable pin as in the diagram you posted does that need to be pulled up?

If I were doing it I think the next step would be to check the outputs to your parallel port are doing what I would expect.

Good luck.

Russell

vtsteam:
Hi Russell. :beer:

The stepper drivers are Keling k-4030 (no longer made) and as wired in the big controller box, there is no connection to any of them on the ENA+ and ENA- inputs. In other words, no wires to those terminals.

I boght this whole unit new many years ago. This CNC mill/router worked for me in the past, so I figure, the enable signals must not be needed.

Yesterday I got impatient and removed the parallel cable from the arduino, and removed the parallel breakout board from the controller. I soldered pins to all of the disconnected lines and plugged them into the arduino directly. I tried 3 kinds of software GRBL interfaces to try to get the mill going. The only one that worked was Universal Gcode Sender (UGS). Candle and GRB Panel, also tried, did not  . Unfortunately only the X axis was operational.

I did try changing the stepper lines to the controller box and established that the stepper motors for all 3 axes worked properly when connected to the X axis driver.

So troubleshooting is now focused on wiring the two Keling k4030 drivers alternately to the X axis output of the arduino -- if both then work I'll start looking at the arduino itself -- or maybe the power supply for it. I was feeding it 5 volts, but maybe that's not enough to generate a +5V signal on its outputs. Arduinos have a wide operational voltage range, but I think they might drop the signal lower than 5V if powered by 5v. I'll try a 9V power supply.

We'll get to the bottom of this. I bet when I do, it will turn out that the parallel cable would have worked, and it was other problems that prevented it.   :bang:

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