metronorth
Hot Rolled
- Joined
- Jun 30, 2004
- Location
- Brampton Ontario Canada
I was recently asked to get a Torcam lathe operating and like most of the internet posts I could find regarding this brand of machine, it was a lathe and control box that was missing the original computer and operating software. I found most of the information I needed on the internet but not a post-success summary so I thought I would do a wrap-up here so that the information is available to others.
The lathe is a simple 2 axis stepper motor controlled machine with a dc motor for the spindle. The milling machine that they made is very similar but obviously uses 3 stepper motors. I used mach3 software on an old windows XP laptop as my control. The laptop had both a parallel and usb 1.0 ports on it. The only hardware I needed to make to get it running was a modified parallel cable. I peeled the cover back from the conductors in the cable and used a pin and multimeter to located the conductors for pins #13 and #25. I cut these two conductors and spliced in a usb cable (red wire) to supply 5 volts to pin #13 (Vcc) at the control box end and connected the usb ground (bare strands) to pin #25, also at the control box end. I simply soldered these wires together and taped them up. They are not carrying data so they won't be vulnerable to interference. It is very important not to make this connection back to the computer end of the parallel cable or you may let the smoke out of your computer. The 5 volt (Vcc) and ground are needed to activate the buffer chips on the breakout board and it will not function without this. There is no 5 volt source available from the DC power supply in the control box. I would not recommend using a ground other than the usb one. If you do, you may let the smoke out of your computer. Your computer will not run if you let the all important smoke out of it.
To get things running, you just need to do your settings in mach3. I took the motors off the lathe to do this so that it was a bit easier. The Torcam lathe is built with metric ball screws (yes, actual ball screws!)so I toggled the native units to metric in the Mach3 settings to keep things more logical. You can write and run programs in imperial units (G20) so there is no need to use imperial native units and strange conversion numbers in your pulse / unit settings.
The pin settings are as follows;
2 = X step
3 = X direction
4 = Y step (mill only)
5 = Y direction (mill only)
6 = Z step
7 = Z Direction
8 = Spindle on signal. The on-off switch and speed are still controlled with the control box switches.
15 = E-stop
16 = Hold / Resume. I did not use this function since the button is damage on the box I was working with.
If you use limit switches, you will have to connect them in series and connect them to one of the other input switches available on the parallel port. Pin #17 will likely work but I didn't test it since the switches weren't functional on the machine I was working with. Confirm your pin selection against the parallel port I/O standard. Many thanks to a person named Darin White who has a makebright.com post about his efforts to reverse engineer the breakout board in this control.
I used 400 steps per unit (mm) a velocity of 1000 for the motors and an acceleration rate of 250 for both the X and Z motors.Output #1 was set to pin #8 to control the spindle on / off. Both M3 and M4 were set to output #1 since there is no reverse control for the spindle within the control box.
When connected in this manner, you use the controls on the laptop to operate the lathe. The e-stop, spindle on / off, spindle speed and master on / off switch function on the lathe control box.
I believe it is as simple as that to make the lathe run. You can add more features if you add a second parallel port to your computer. Home switches, coolant, etc. can be controlled. For more details, Darin White s makebright.com website has the pins fully documented. Just remember that the configuration shown will not work with a standard parallel port since the I/O's do not respect the parallel port standard.You will have to make a cable.
The lathe is a simple 2 axis stepper motor controlled machine with a dc motor for the spindle. The milling machine that they made is very similar but obviously uses 3 stepper motors. I used mach3 software on an old windows XP laptop as my control. The laptop had both a parallel and usb 1.0 ports on it. The only hardware I needed to make to get it running was a modified parallel cable. I peeled the cover back from the conductors in the cable and used a pin and multimeter to located the conductors for pins #13 and #25. I cut these two conductors and spliced in a usb cable (red wire) to supply 5 volts to pin #13 (Vcc) at the control box end and connected the usb ground (bare strands) to pin #25, also at the control box end. I simply soldered these wires together and taped them up. They are not carrying data so they won't be vulnerable to interference. It is very important not to make this connection back to the computer end of the parallel cable or you may let the smoke out of your computer. The 5 volt (Vcc) and ground are needed to activate the buffer chips on the breakout board and it will not function without this. There is no 5 volt source available from the DC power supply in the control box. I would not recommend using a ground other than the usb one. If you do, you may let the smoke out of your computer. Your computer will not run if you let the all important smoke out of it.
To get things running, you just need to do your settings in mach3. I took the motors off the lathe to do this so that it was a bit easier. The Torcam lathe is built with metric ball screws (yes, actual ball screws!)so I toggled the native units to metric in the Mach3 settings to keep things more logical. You can write and run programs in imperial units (G20) so there is no need to use imperial native units and strange conversion numbers in your pulse / unit settings.
The pin settings are as follows;
2 = X step
3 = X direction
4 = Y step (mill only)
5 = Y direction (mill only)
6 = Z step
7 = Z Direction
8 = Spindle on signal. The on-off switch and speed are still controlled with the control box switches.
15 = E-stop
16 = Hold / Resume. I did not use this function since the button is damage on the box I was working with.
If you use limit switches, you will have to connect them in series and connect them to one of the other input switches available on the parallel port. Pin #17 will likely work but I didn't test it since the switches weren't functional on the machine I was working with. Confirm your pin selection against the parallel port I/O standard. Many thanks to a person named Darin White who has a makebright.com post about his efforts to reverse engineer the breakout board in this control.
I used 400 steps per unit (mm) a velocity of 1000 for the motors and an acceleration rate of 250 for both the X and Z motors.Output #1 was set to pin #8 to control the spindle on / off. Both M3 and M4 were set to output #1 since there is no reverse control for the spindle within the control box.
When connected in this manner, you use the controls on the laptop to operate the lathe. The e-stop, spindle on / off, spindle speed and master on / off switch function on the lathe control box.
I believe it is as simple as that to make the lathe run. You can add more features if you add a second parallel port to your computer. Home switches, coolant, etc. can be controlled. For more details, Darin White s makebright.com website has the pins fully documented. Just remember that the configuration shown will not work with a standard parallel port since the I/O's do not respect the parallel port standard.You will have to make a cable.
