Micromill success!
Posted: Sun 05 Sep , 2010 12:29 pm
I've finally achieved my goal of getting my Micromill running. I bought it very cheap but it came with no software, cable or dongle. I struggled for days trying to get it to work with the free DOS software download and making my own serial cable with no success. Thank you very much to Denford Admin for patiently answering my questions and trying your best to help. 
I finally gave up on that yesterday and decided to do what angel-tech did here: viewtopic.php?f=54&t=2264
Once the top board was off (2 screws), I connected to the 96 pin header on the SmartStep/3 board with some Futaba J connectors from my r/c model days. I followed the pin guide here: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=2119 I removed the black wire pins from the connector shells and plugged them onto the gnd pins separately. This leaves the red/white wires in the shells for the step/dir signals on pins 14 & 15.
I cut the end off an old parallel cable and matched up the wires using the pin assignments I found here towards the bottom of the page: https://www.hobbycnc.com/products/hobbyc ... oard-kits/
Yes, I know there's no isolation in my parallel cable hack but I didn't want to spend any cash until I found out if this thing works.
I drug an old PII 400 down out of the attic to sacrifice its parallel port in case I wired something wrong. It has W2K installed so I went here: https://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm and downloaded their custom DOS boot disk without ramdrive. I downloaded TurboCNC (DOS shareware) from https://www.dakeng.com/turbo.html and installed it. After setting the step/dir pin assignments in TurboCNC's Configure screen it all works great!
I still have to get the spindle motor controller working and hook up the limit switches but I'm a very happy camper today!
I wish I could say I am smart enough to have figured all this out myself but Mr. Evan Williams of Canada, a fellow member of the Homeshop Machinist forum held my hand throughout the process. Thanks Evan!
I finally gave up on that yesterday and decided to do what angel-tech did here: viewtopic.php?f=54&t=2264
Once the top board was off (2 screws), I connected to the 96 pin header on the SmartStep/3 board with some Futaba J connectors from my r/c model days. I followed the pin guide here: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=2119 I removed the black wire pins from the connector shells and plugged them onto the gnd pins separately. This leaves the red/white wires in the shells for the step/dir signals on pins 14 & 15.
I cut the end off an old parallel cable and matched up the wires using the pin assignments I found here towards the bottom of the page: https://www.hobbycnc.com/products/hobbyc ... oard-kits/
Yes, I know there's no isolation in my parallel cable hack but I didn't want to spend any cash until I found out if this thing works.
I drug an old PII 400 down out of the attic to sacrifice its parallel port in case I wired something wrong. It has W2K installed so I went here: https://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm and downloaded their custom DOS boot disk without ramdrive. I downloaded TurboCNC (DOS shareware) from https://www.dakeng.com/turbo.html and installed it. After setting the step/dir pin assignments in TurboCNC's Configure screen it all works great!
I still have to get the spindle motor controller working and hook up the limit switches but I'm a very happy camper today!
I wish I could say I am smart enough to have figured all this out myself but Mr. Evan Williams of Canada, a fellow member of the Homeshop Machinist forum held my hand throughout the process. Thanks Evan!
