Basic Instructions for setting up the Ethernet Smooth Stepper:
You will not
need a special Ethernet cable. Since the microcontroller on the ESS has
Auto-MDIX (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medium_dependent_interface),
a crossover or straight cable will work fine. The cable may be shielded or
not. Since cables are so inexpensive, I would personally use a shielded
CAT6 cable, but I believe an unshielded CAT5 cable would work fine. The
SmoothStepper may be connected to an Ethernet switch or you may directly connect
it to the Ethernet port of the PC. I would recommend keeping the
SmoothStepper on its own private network, but it would probably work OK with
light Internet traffic on the same net. Personally, I would not risk the
operation of my machine by combining the two. If my computer had only one
Ethernet port, I would purchase a USB to Ethernet adapter and run the Internet
on the USB port. That way all of the machine control would be on its own
private network.
I would make a copy of your current XML (profile) file, just in case something
goes wrong. The XML files are located in the c:\Mach3 directory and have
extensions ending in ".xml". If you are launching Mach from a shortcut on
your desktop, the profile is specified in the shortcut.
The SmoothStepper has certain parameters of its own that are unique to it.
The plugin creates a new section in the XML using the name of the device.
In the case of the USB SmoothStepper, the name is "SmoothStepper". For the
Ethernet SmoothStepper, the name is "ESS". This is a problem for people
that are upgrading. I need to add a feature that will allow the special
tags to be copied from one section to the other if they are migrating from the
USB SS to the ESS. The tags I am speaking of would be things like the Max
Step Frequencies, port direction setting, etc..
Here is a link to the latest Ethernet SS plugin. Open the zip file and
double-click the m3p file. It should copy it to the c:\Mach3\Plugins
folder and rename it with a dll extension.
http://warp9td.com/downloads.htm
This one does not have the
Mach Revision limitation that the other one did. But if the user tries to use
the M10 or M11 commands it will let the user know and will not proceed. If they
try to use THC, it won't work very well. I should add some software to let them
know that there is an issue. I'll add that to my list of things to do.
Here are the instructions for configuring your computer's Ethernet port and
running the plugin.
1. The
computer's Ethernet port needs to be configured with a static IP address.
Usually Ethernet ports are set up for DHCP, which allows a cable or DSL router
to assign a unique address to a device that is requesting an address for the
local network. The best way to describe this is to point you to a website
that shows it in pictures. Please go to this site:
http://www6.nohold.net/Cisco2/ukp.aspx?pid=80&vw=1&articleid=3998
Scroll down to the operating system you are using.
When you get to the part where you click the radio button that says "Use the
following IP address", please type in the following:
IP address: 10.9.9.8 (or anything in the 10.9.9.x range, but not 10.9.9.9
because that is the address of the board)
Subnet mask: 255.255.255.0
By default it will show a Subnet mask of 255.0.0.0 after you type in 10.9.9.8
It must be changed to 255.255.255.0.
The Default Gateway may be left blank, as well as the Preferred and Alternate
DNS servers.
That is all you need to do for the static IP address.
2. You
can try running Mach at this point, but you might need to disable the firewall
if it doesn't communicate. When you run Mach, a firewall warning might pop
up that says an application is trying to access the Internet. Give it
permission to do so. I believe it needs to be valid for Public networks
and not just Home or work (private) networks. That way you won't need to
disable the Firewall because you are creating an exception for Mach.
Depending upon whether or not the user has previously checked off the box that
says "Don't ask me again" when you select a motion control device, you might
need to reset that. In order to do that you will need to have Mach running
(which means you will need to be pretending to be running another device such as
the parallel port). Choose the pull-down menu "Function Cfg's". Then
choose the option "Reset Device Sel...". The next time you run Mach it
will ask you which motion control device you want to run.
When you run the Ethernet SmoothStepper plugin, it will try to contact the
board. If this is the first time you are using this XML (profile) file,
the IP address will not be set properly. I am working on a better user
interface for this so that it flows nicely. You will be presented with a
semi-cryptic message that says:
CTftp::WakeupClient
Board does not reply.
Select YES to retry
No to config
Cancel to quit