help needed

[Doddy]

No parallel port I can half-understand on any new-ish computer, but USB? That's..... unusual. Any details on the computer?

The usual recommendation is typically to replace the electronics, but I can't help but think that you should be able to source a spare USB from "somewhere". I'd start there. Anything else might take rather a lot of effort and cash, and if you've yet to connect it after 18 months I'm not convinced you'd have the patience. I'm being unfairly judgmental there, and I'll apologies for that.

[wilkie5277]

Thanks Doddy I do have usb lead as well but nothing happens when I plug it in

[dazp1976]

Thanks Doddy I do have usb lead as well but nothing happens when I plug it in

Read my post#3.
If your breakout board has both parallel and usb, the usb is likely NOT a control. Likely a power source only. The parallel is the control part.

[Doddy]

Read my post#3.
If your breakout board has both parallel and usb, the usb is likely NOT a control. Likely a power source only. The parallel is the control part.

Can we agree that there's insufficient information at this time and OP should follow the request of yours from post 2 and provide a picture.

For what it's worth - I do look in the background for queries like this (particularly if they fall within a 30 mile radius of me), but I've seen photos of the controller cards associated with CNCest with integrated USB controllers and stepper drivers on a single board, through to USB controllers with individual stepper drivers. I follow the logic of the direction you're heading in but let's start with the basics and ask the OP to open the control box and take a photo. Without that, we're all wasting time.

[JohnHaine]

This is in danger of getting VERY confusing as we have two OPs asking similar questions. I have posted a suggestion to Ian which should work, based on my experience upgrading both a lathe and mill from PP to USB using UC100s. I agree that the USB connection Ian has is probably for power - the BoB on my lathe requires this as well as the UC100 for "data" but the one on the mill does not.

In reply to Kevin: can I ask why you have installed UGS? And can you please give more details of your system?

You say...

"Physically its a USB laptop connection out, Controller USB in, serial port out, Router is Serial in." I think that means that both your laptop and controller have USB ports which are by definition serial.

I see that at least one CNCEST machine says that its controller needs "G Code" - that may indicate that inside the motion controller uses GRBL on an Arduino (or similar processor). GRBL/Arduino does accept G code commands though needs a lot of other stuff, and programs such as UGS and GRBLController can provide this. So did you install UGS because it was suggested by the supplier? The combination of UGS and GRBL is sort of equivalent to Mach 3 with parallel port. If your controller does use GRBL then I suggest you go to the GRBL and/or UGS forums.

We await more information! And perhaps Kevin, you could start a new thread with your query please?