Plcm-e4

[Doddy]

Firstly, I'll admit to being cautious to reply - because if you have to ask the question then you clearly are less than confident with what you're doing - don't take that the wrong way.

Jazz is mostly right - however I think you can afford to skip a few of the nice-to-haves. You can use the Port#1 outputs to directly drive your stepper drivers - the drivers pretty much all have Opto Isolated inputs, so the risk of damage is limited to getting your wiring correct in the first place. The Russian manual is shite - there's no specification for the buffered outputs but lets assume that they can source 20mA at 5V - then designate yourself the step/dir for each axis (chose just one to start with!) and configure Mach accordingly, and wire the output to the driver step+ / dir+ inputs (two, one for each) and ground the step- / dir- inputs on the driver.

For inputs (limit switches etc) I wouldn't use the Port#1 inputs directly without a BoB, for Jazz's reason of isolation - but then the main board has 16 isolated inputs that you can use - go for them. You also have a 0-10V output for the spindle analogue input and any of 8 relays to help control the spindle & other bits. Plenty to go at. To answer your original question - yes, you have to define the mapping of step/dirs yourself to the port #1 outputs. Leave the EN's open for now on the stepper drivers.

[JAZZCNC]

Jazz is mostly right - however I think you can afford to skip a few of the nice-to-haves.

Ok after looking at the manual they have changed this board completely, the original PLCM-E4 that I used is completely different regards I/O and didn't have any isolated inputs or relays etc.

So Doddy is correct you have everything you need, you just need to connect up to the right places. If your not sure where those right places are then don't turn it on until you have checked with us.

Regards the Step+/Dir+ then you simply connect to the outputs on Port #1 then assign the output in software for each ie:

X-Step + = Out # 1 port #1
X-Dir + = Out # 2 port #1
X-Enable + = Out # 3 port #1
Y-Step + = Out # 4 port #1
Y-Dir + = Out # 5 port #1
Y-Enable + = Out # 6 port #1
Z-Step + = Out # 7 port #1
Z-Dir + = Out # 8 port #1
Z-Enable + = Out # 9 port #1

Connect Drive negative pins wired in parallel to any GND pin on port #1

However, like Doddy says you could just leave the enables unconnected to save outputs or to save pins just use one Output to enable all the drives.